James Ladyman, Lorenzo Lorenzetti (2023), The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science — DOI-10.1086/729061
Key takeaways
- The three current versions of “effective realism” (about non-relativistic quantum mechanics, about quantum field theory, and about superseded theories) can be unified, and made explicitly realist, under ontic structural realism, using realism about modal structure and the scale-relativity of ontology (real patterns).
Seeded from the abstract and a skim, before the reading in NOTE-129. What follows is what the work says about itself.
Three versions of effective realism (ER) have been proposed in the BJPS for three problems facing scientific realism. Fraser and Vickers apply ER to non-relativistic quantum mechanics to avoid underdetermination among its interpretations. Williams and Fraser apply it to quantum field theory. Robertson and Wilson use it for the ontological status of entities in superseded theories. Ladyman and Lorenzetti argue that ontic structural realism (OSR), with its realism about modal structure and its scale-relative ontology, unifies these proposals and makes clear in what sense they are realist. They also answer a recent critique of the OSR treatment of quantum mechanics that they rely on.
Standing in the record
Filed from the 2026-09-26 sweep of the papers-feed tracker for philosophy: 15 seconds of active reading over 2 sessions. It was filed Deferred, unread. NOTE-129 is the close reading of 2026-09-26, and it placed the work: Active — worth reading as a short, clear map tying the effective-realism literature to OSR’s modal-structure and real-patterns ontology; its arguments are programmatic, and each step leans on Ladyman & Ross (2007) rather than new argument.
When seeded, before the reading in NOTE-129, the entry gave a priority for a deeper reading: medium — t=15s over two sessions is low, but it is a load-bearing structural-realism paper that pairs with the high-dwell LIT-151. The skim captures the argument’s map, not the details.
What the seeding asked a deeper reading to check (NOTE-129 is that reading):
- It is a companion to LIT-151 (Wallace’s math-first structural realism). Both use real patterns and scale-relative ontology, and a close reading should compare their accounts of what exists at non-fundamental levels.
- Check whether “scale-relative existence” says more than “is a real pattern at scale s”, and whether it answers Saatsi-style worries about the quantum case.
- It is relevant to philosophy-of-science discussions of effective theories and renormalisation.
Access when seeded: philarchive.org is behind Cloudflare. Read the full accepted manuscript (PhilArchive LADEOS, 22 pp., “Forthcoming in BJPS”) and the record page through the Wayback Machine: the abstract, the table of contents, the opening of §2.2 and the §5 conclusion. The record’s dates are “Added to PP 2023-11-23” (the record already carried the abstract and the “forthcoming” listing) and “Archival date 2024-03-23” (PDF upload). Crossref online date 2023-12-13. published: is the PhilPapers listing date. If only the DOI version counts, use 2023-12-13.