Ontic structural realism is the view that structure is fundamental. This view is at odds with a long-standing tradition in metaphysics which takes the fundamental structure of reality to consist of individuals. Steven French argues in favour of an eliminativist ontic structural realism which is supposed to eliminate individuals, as well as other objects, from the category of fundamentalia. There have also been more moderate attempts where 'non-individuals' are encompassed in the framework. In this paper, I make two interconnected claims. Firstly, that any moderate version of ontic structural realism is too weak to be included in the ontic structural realism familiy since the view fails to satisfy the motivations for employing any kind of ontic structural realism in the first place. Secondly, that if we want to formulate an ontic structural realist view that delivers on the claim that there are no fundamentalia apart from structure we will not find a satisfying view in French's oeuvre.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis develops a general theory of patterns on the basis of the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce. The main questions with which this thesis is concerned are: what is the ontological status of patterns? In what does their reality consist in? Why does exhibiting patternhood seem to be a necessary condition for the very possibility of cognition? The development of the theory is motivated by a discussion of Ontic Structural Realism (OSR), a theory that has recently been gaining attention in analytic philosophy of science, especially in philosophy of physics. The central claim of OSR is that only patterns (structures) are real; individual objects are not real, or have only a “thin” being in some sense. In this thesis I deal mainly with the version of OSR developed by James Ladyman and Don Ross in their book Every Thing Must Go. I address two criticisms that are commonly levelled against OSR, (1) that it cannot give an adequate account of the difference between physical structure and mathematical structure, and (2) that it cannot give an adequate account of the relationship between the world and our representations of the world. I then show how Peirce’s philosophical framework, as encapsulated in his pragmatism, theory of the categories, Scholastic realism, and theory of the continuum, could provide an answer to these difficulties. OSR will also be used to illuminate an aspect of Peirce’s philosophy which I believe has not been sufficiently emphasized in the literature, namely its structuralist aspect. Specifically, it will be shown that Peirce’s philosophy leads to a worldview very similar to that of OSR, via a path of reasoning that is completely different from those standardly used to argue for OSR. This thesis as a whole is an attempt to throw light on the nature of patternhood through an elucidation and justification of this path of reasoning, which I call the alternative path to OSR.

Empirical educational research enjoys a methodological and theoretical debate that is characterized by a number of unresolved and lively debated controversies. This compilation thesis is an attempt to contribute to this debate using the toolbox of philosophy of science. The thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four essays. In the introductory chapter I identify three methodological and theoretical controversies that are discussed within the field of educational research. These are: 1) the controversy concerning the scientific status of educational research; 2) the controversy between cognitive and sociocultural theories of learning; and, 3) the controversy between realist and constructionist interpretations of theories of learning. I provide in the essays a critical assessment of the claims behind each of these controversies, and argue for an alternative reconstruction of these issues. In Essay I, I criticize a view about the interpretation of human action, labeled in the text as interpretivism. This view posits a sharp separation between the natural and social sciences, to the effect that the methods of the latter cannot be applied to the former. The first controversy seems to rest on this position. As I argue, the arguments in support of interpretivism are contradicted by actual research practice. I conclude that the interpretivistic claims lack support and that the general separation claim appears as problematic. A further debate has fueled the first controversy, that is, the supposed distinction between qualitative and quantitative methods. In Essay II, I argue against this distinction. More specifically, I discuss the concept of empirical support in the context of qualitative methods (for short, qualitative support). I provide arguments that although there are two specific and non-trivial properties of qualitative support, there is no methodological separation between quantitative and qualitative methods concerning empirical support. Considered together, the first two essays indicate two points of methodological continuity between educational research and other scientific practices (such as the natural sciences). I therefore conclude that the controversy concerning the scientific status of educational research rests in large part on unjustified claims. Essay III focuses on the second controversy. In this article I argue that Suárez’ inferential approach to the concept of scientific representation can be used as an account of scientific representation in learning, regardless of whether learning is understood as a cognitive or social phenomenon. The third controversy is discussed in Essay IV. Here, I discuss some ontological aspects of the framework of the actor-network theory. Reflecting on the use of this framework in the research field of Networked Learning, I argue that the assumption of an ontology of relations provides the solution for two puzzles about the ontology of networks. The relevance of my argument for the third controversy is that it suggests a point of connection between constructionist and realist interpretations of the ontology of learning. The last two essays suggest two points of continuities between theoretical frameworks that have been and still are argued to be incompatible. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript.</p>