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MCGINN, Colin. Basic Structures of Reality: Essays in Meta-Physics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. viii + 243pp. Cloth, $49.95- Part I of this book consists of an introduction and eleven essays; Part II, following its introduction, is "a series of aphorisms" viewed by its author as "a philosophical poem." According to the Preface, the book "aims to develop a philosophical understanding of basic physical concepts." The Introduction to Part I notes that the book is "accessible without grasp of technical and mathematical subtleties," and that its issues "can be raised independently of" "quantum mechanics and relativity." The variety of topics covered and arguments presented in Part I precludes summary in the space available here, so instead of summarizing, the following account introduces a few of the book's central theses, and a possible way of connecting them that the book does not consider.
The book as a whole presupposes "the so-called 'structuralist' conception of physical knowledge," that is, "the view that our knowledge of physics does not disclose the intrinsic nature of the entities posited, but only their mathematically specified interrelations." That this is the nature of the knowledge provided by the physical sciences provides the basis...