The term structuralism occurred in several branches of the humanities and the sciences in the period 1929 – 1970: in Linguistics (Ferdinand de Saussure, Roman Jakobson), Anthropology (Claude Lévi-Strauss), Developmental psychology (Jean Piaget), Literature (Workshop for potential literature, Raymond Queneau) and in Mathematics (Nicolas Bourbaki). To the layman the structuralist movement in math...

Structuralism and quidditism are competing views of the metaphysics of property individuation: structuralists claim that properties are individuated by their nomological roles; quidditists claim that they are individuated by something else. This paper (1) refutes what many see as the best reason to accept structuralism over quidditism and (2) offers a methodological argument in favor of a quidd...

Structuralism is supposed to be a dissolver of metaphysical pseudodebates. This paper is a search for the thesis behind the rhetoric. Taking ‘spacetime structuralism’ as a case study, I identify six different theses that seem to share this name. My conclusions are largely negative: that those theses that are new are not plausible, and vice versa. The exception is structuralism as a rejection of...

Scholars, journalists, and activists working on climate change often distinguish between “individual” “structural” approaches to decarbonization. The former concern choices individuals can make reduce their “personal carbon footprint” (e.g. eating less meat). latter changes institutions, laws, other social structures. These two are framed as oppositional, representing a mutually exclusive force...

Abstract This paper defends a conceptualistic version of structuralism as the most convincing way elaborating philosophical understanding in line with classical tradition. The argument begins revision tradition “conceptual mathematics”, incarnated key figures period 1850 to 1940 like Riemann, Dedekind, Hilbert or Noether, showing how it led structuralist methodology. Then tension between ‘presu...