We discuss from a philosophical perspective the way in which the normal concept of time might be said to `emerge' in a quantum theory of gravity. After an introduction, we briefly discuss the notion of emergence, without regard to time. We then introduce the search for a quantum theory of gravity ; and review some general interpretative issues about space, time and matter. We then discuss the emergence of time in simple quantum geometrodynamics, and in the Euclidean approach. Section 6 (...) concludes. (shrink)

We have two aims. The main one is to expound the idea of renormalization in quantum field theory, with no technical prerequisites. Our motivation is that renormalization is undoubtedly one of the great ideas—and great successes--of twentieth-century physics. Also it has strongly influenced in diverse ways, how physicists conceive of physical theories. So it is of considerable philosophical interest. Second, we will briefly relate renormalization to Ernest Nagel's account of inter-theoretic relations, especially reduction. One theme will be a contrast between (...) two approaches to renormalization. The old approach, which prevailed from ca. 1945 to 1970, treated renormalizability as a necessary condition for being an acceptable quantum field theory. On this approach, it is a piece of great good fortune that high energy physicists can formulate renormalizable quantum field theories that are so empirically successful. But the new approach to renormalization explains why the phenomena we see, at the energies we can access in our particle accelerators, are described by a renormalizable quantum field theory. For whatever non-renormalizable interactions may occur at yet higher energies, they are insignificant at accessible energies. Thus the new approach explains why our best fundamental theories have a feature, viz. renormalizability, which the old approach treated as a selection principle for theories. That is worth saying since philosophers tend to think of scientific explanation as only explaining an individual event, or perhaps a single law, or at most deducing one theory as a special case of another. Here we see a framework in which there is a space of theories. And this framework is powerful enough to deduce that what seemed “manna from heaven” is to be expected: the good fortune is generic. We also maintain that universality, a concept stressed in renormalization theory, is essentially the familiar philosophical idea of multiple realizability; and that it causes no problems for reductions of a Nagelian kind. (shrink)

This is a collection of eleven original essays in analytical philosophy by British and American philosophers, centering on the connection between mind and language. Two themes predominate: how it is that thoughts and sentences can represent the world; and what having a thought - a belief, for instance - involves. Developing from these themes are the questions: what does having a belief require of the believer, and of the way he or she relates to the environment? In particular, does having (...) a belief require speaking a language? The volume concludes the informal series stemming from the meetings sponsored by the Thyssen Foundation. (shrink)

These nine essays address fundamental questions about time in philosophy, physics, linguistics, and psychology. Are there facts about the future? Could we affect the past? In physics, general relativity and quantum theory give contradictory treatments of time. So in the current search for a theory of quantum gravity, which should give way: general relativity or quantum theory? In linguistics and psychology, how does our language represent time, and how do our minds keep track of it?

This paper expounds the modern theory of symplectic reduction in finite-dimensional Hamiltonian mechanics. This theory generalizes the well-known connection between continuous symmetries and conserved quantities, i.e. Noether's theorem. It also illustrates one of mechanics' grand themes: exploiting a symmetry so as to reduce the number of variables needed to treat a problem. The exposition emphasises how the theory provides insights about the rotation group and the rigid body. The theory's device of quotienting a state space also casts light on philosophical (...) issues about whether two apparently distinct but utterly indiscernible possibilities should be ruled to be one and the same. These issues are illustrated using ``relationist'' mechanics. (shrink)

Abstract:This field survey focused on two constructs that have been developed to represent the ethical context in organizations: ethical climate and ethical culture. We first examined issues of convergence and divergence between these constructs through factor analysis and correlational analysis. Results suggested that the two constructs are measuring somewhat different, but strongly related dimensions of the ethical context. We then investigated the relationships between the emergent ethical context factors and an ethics-related attitude (organizational commitment) and behavior (observed unethical conduct) for (...) respondents who work in organizations with and without ethics codes. Regression results indicated that an ethical culture-based dimension was more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in code organizations while climate-based dimensions were more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in non-code organizations. Ethical culture and ethical climate-based factors influenced organizational commitment similarly in both types of organizations. Normative implications of the study are discussed, as are implications for future theorizing, research and management practice. (shrink)

We discuss scientific realism from the perspective of modern cosmology, especially primordial cosmology: i.e. the cosmological investigation of the very early universe. We first state our allegiance to scientific realism, and discuss what insights about it cosmology might yield, as against "just" supplying scientific claims that philosophers can then evaluate. In particular, we discuss: the idea of laws of cosmology, and limitations on ascertaining the global structure of spacetime. Then we review some of what is now known about the early (...) universe : meaning, roughly, from a thousandth of a second after the Big Bang onwards. The rest of the paper takes up two issues about primordial cosmology, i.e. the very early universe, where "very early" means, roughly, much earlier than one second after the Big Bang: say, less than 10^{-11} seconds. Both issues illustrate that familiar philosophical threat to scientific realism, the under-determination of theory by data---on a cosmic scale. The first issue concerns the difficulty of observationally probing the very early universe. More specifically, the difficulty is to ascertain details of the putative inflationary epoch. The second issue concerns difficulties about confirming a cosmological theory that postulates a multiverse, i.e. a set of domains each of whose inhabitants cannot directly observe, or otherwise causally interact with, other domains. This again concerns inflation, since many inflationary models postulate a multiverse. For all these issues, it will be clear that much remains unsettled, as regards both physics and philosophy. But we will maintain that these remaining controversies do not threaten scientific realism. (shrink)

In this paper we present a schema for describing dualities between physical theories, and illustrate it in detail with the example of bosonization: a boson-fermion duality in two-dimensional quantum field theory. The schema develops proposals in De Haro : these proposals include construals of notions related to duality, like representation, model, symmetry and interpretation. The aim of the schema is to give a more precise criterion for duality than has so far been considered. The bosonization example, or boson-fermion duality, has (...) the feature of being simple, yet rich enough, to illustrate the most relevant aspects of our schema, which also apply to more sophisticated dualities. The richness of the example consists, mainly, in its concern with two non-trivial quantum field theories: including massive Thirring-sine-Gordon duality, and non-abelian bosonization. This prompts two comparisons with the recent philosophical literature on dualities:--- Unlike the standard cases of duality in quantum field theory and string theory, where only specific simplifying limits of the theories are explicitly known, the boson-fermion duality is known to hold {\it exactly}. This exactness can be exhibited explicitly. The bosonization example illustrates both the cases of isomorphic and {\it non-isomorphic} models: which we believe the literature on dualities has not so far discussed. (shrink)

This article reviews 1 decade of research on cheating in academic institutions. This research demonstrates that cheating is prevalent and that some forms of cheating have increased dramatically in the last 30 years. This research also suggests that although both individual and contextual factors influence cheating, contextual factors, such as students' perceptions of peers' behavior, are the most powerful influence. In addition, an institution's academic integrity programs and policies, such as honor codes, can have a significant influence on students' behavior. (...) Finally, we offer suggestions for managing cheating from students' and faculty members' perspectives. (shrink)

The current status of localization and related concepts, especially localized statevectors and position operators, within Lorentz-invariant Quantum Theory (LIQT) is ambiguous and controversial.1 Ever since the early work of Newton & Wigner (1949), and the subsequent extensions of their work, particularly by Hegerfeldt (1974, 1985), it has seemed impossible to identify localized statevectors or position operators in LIQT that were not counterintuitive—strange—in one way or another; the most striking strange property being the superluminal propagation of the localized states. The ambiguous (...) and controversial status of these concepts arises from the varied reactions that workers have to the strange properties. Some regard them, particularly the superluminal propagation, as utterly unacceptable, and conclude that no precise concepts of localized statevectors and position operators exist in LIQT (Wigner 1973, p. 325-327; 1983, pp. 310-313; Malament 1996). Others downplay the whole issue, on the grounds that current theoretical and experimental practice has no need of sharply formulated concepts of localization, localized states etc. (Birrell & Davies 1984, pp. 48-59; Haag 1992, p. 34). Still others, including ourselves, believe that the superluminal propagation does not lead to causal contradictions, and is not in conflict with available empirical data: so that it should not be ruled out. We also believe that the other strange properties are merely unfamiliar novelties of LIQT which we must simply learn to accept. (Like the superluminal propagation, they do not lead to causal contradictions, nor conflict with available data.) So in this paper, we aim to help remove the ambiguous and controversial status of localization concepts in LIQT. Overall, our strategy will be to assess a number of localization concepts, and thereby clarify the often complex relationships among them. (shrink)

Quantum field theories are notoriously difficult to understand, physically as well as philosophically. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better conceptual understanding of gauge quantum field theories, such as quantum chromodynamics, by discussing a famous physical limit, the ’t Hooft limit, in which the theory concerned often simplifies. The idea of the limit is that the number N of colours goes to infinity. The simplifications that can happen in this limit, and that we will consider, are: (...) the theory’s Feynman diagrams can be drawn on a plane without lines intersecting ; and the theory, or a sector of it, becomes integrable, and indeed corresponds to a well-studied system, viz. a spin chain. Planarity is important because it shows how a quantum field theory can exhibit extended, in particular string-like, structures; in some cases, this gives a connection with string theory, and so with its representation of gravity. Previous philosophical literature about how one theory might be emergent from, and-or reduced to, another one has tended to emphasize cases, such as occur in statistical mechanics, where the system before the limit has finitely many degrees of freedom. But here, our quantum field theories, including those on the way to the ’t Hooft limit, will have infinitely many degrees of freedom. Nevertheless, we will show how a recent schema by Butterfield and taxonomy by Norton apply to the quantum field theories we consider; and we will classify three physical properties of our theories in these terms. These properties are planarity and integrability, as in and above; and the behaviour of the beta-function reflecting, for example, asymptotic freedom. Our discussion of these properties, especially the beta-function, will also relate to recent philosophical debate about the propriety of assessing quantum field theories, whose rigorous existence is not yet proven. (shrink)

Its interpretation, however, is as unsettled now as in the heroic days of Einstein and Bohr.This book focuses on quantum non-locality, the curious quantum ...

We advocate an account of dualities between physical theories: the basic idea is that dual theories are isomorphic representations of a common core. We defend and illustrate this account, which we call a Schema, in relation to symmetries. Overall, the account meshes well with standard treatments of symmetries. But the distinction between the common core and the dual theories prompts a distinction between three kinds of symmetry: which we call ‘stipulated’, ‘accidental’ and ‘proper’.

Codes of conduct are viewed here as a community’s attempt to communicate its expectations and standards of ethical behavior. Many organizations are implementing codes, but empirical support for the relationship between such codes and employee conduct is lacking. We investigated the long term effects of a collegiate honor code experience as well as the effects of corporate ethics codes on unethical behavior in the workplace by surveying alumni from an honor code and a non-honor code college who now work in (...) business. We found that self-reported unethical behavior was lower for respondents who work in an organization with a corporate code of conduct and was inversely associated with corporate code implementation strength and embeddedness. Self-reported unethical behavior was also influenced by the interaction of a collegiate honor code experience and corporate code implementation strength. (shrink)

This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme, the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or point-sized objects located there; so that properties of spatial or spatiotemporal regions and their material contents are determined by the point-by-point facts. More specifically, this paper argues against pointillisme about the concept of velocity in classical mechanics; especially against proposals by Tooley, Robinson and Lewis. (...) A companion paper argues against pointillisme about -geometry, as proposed by Bricker. To avoid technicalities, I conduct the argument almost entirely in the context of "Newtonian" ideas about space and time, and the classical mechanics of point-particles, i.e. extensionless particles moving in a void. But both the debate and my arguments carry over to relativistic physics. Introduction The wider campaign 2.1 Connecting physics and metaphysics 2.1.1 Avoiding controversy about the intrinsic–extrinsic distinction 2.1.2 Distinction from three mathematical distinctions 2.2 Classical mechanics is not pointilliste, and can be perdurantist 2.2.1 Two versions of pointillisme 2.2.2 Two common claims 2.2.3 My contrary claims 2.3 In more detail... 2.3.1 Four violations of pointillisme 2.3.2 For perdurantism Velocity as intrinsic? 3.1 Can properties represented by vectors be intrinsic to a point? 3.2 Orthodox velocity is extrinsic but local 3.2.1 A question and a debate 3.2.2 The verdict 3.3 Against intrinsic velocity 3.3.1 A common view—and a common problem 3.3.2 Tooley's proposal and his arguments 3.3.3 Tooley's further discussion "Shadow velocities": Lewis and Robinson 4.1 The proposal 4.2 Criticism: the vector field remains unspecified 4.3 Avoiding the presupposition of persistence, using Hilbert's symbol 4.4 Comparison with Robinson and Lewis. (shrink)

I compare deterministic and stochastic hidden variable models of the Bell experiment, exphasising philosophical distinctions between the various ways of combining conditionals and probabilities. I make four main claims. (1) Under natural assumptions, locality as it occurs in these models is equivalent to causal independence, as analysed (in the spirit of Lewis) in terms of probabilities and conditionals. (2) Stochastic models are indeed more general than deterministic ones. (3) For factorizable stochastic models, relativity's lack of superluminal causation does not favour (...) locality over completeness. (4) If we prohibit all superluminal causation, then the violation of the Bell inequality teaches us a lesson, besides quantum mechanics' familiar ones that quantities can lack precise values and that pairs of quantities can lack joint probabilities: namely, some pairs of events are not screened off by their common past. (shrink)

In previous work, I described several examples combining reduction and emergence: where reduction is understood a la Ernest Nagel, and emergence is understood as behaviour that is novel. Here, my aim is again to reconcile reduction and emergence, for a case which is apparently more problematic than those I treated before: renormalization. My main point is that renormalizability being a generic feature at accessible energies gives us a conceptually unified family of Nagelian reductions. That is worth saying since philosophers tend (...) to think of scientific explanation as only explaining an individual event, or perhaps a single law, or at most deducing one theory as a special case of another. Here we see a framework in which there is a space of theories endowed with enough structure that it provides a family of reductions. (shrink)

I discuss how modern cosmology illustrates under-determination of theoretical hypotheses by data, in ways that are different from most philosophical discussions. I emphasise cosmology's concern with what data could in principle be collected by a single observer ; and I give a broadly sceptical discussion of cosmology's appeal to the cosmological principle as a way of breaking the under-determination.I confine most of the discussion to the history of the observable universe from about one second after the Big Bang, as described (...) by the mainstream cosmological model: in effect, what cosmologists in the early 1970s dubbed the ‘standard model’, as elaborated since then. But in the closing Section 4, I broach some questions about times earlier than one second. (shrink)

This article aims to read feminist new materialisms (Barad), together with ‘postulated’ linguistic or cultural primacy of Queer Theory (Butler), to show how both are engaged in similar critical-ethical endeavours. The central argument is that the criticism of Barad and new materialisms misses Butler’s materialistic insights due to a narrow interpretation of Butler's alleged social-constructivist position. There is, therefore, a specific focus on where they both make similar ethical appeals. Moreover, the article relies on Adorno's negative dialectic to highlight an (...) interpretation of Barad and Butler as being part of the same dialectical movement, in which materialism and idealism fluctuate in their mutual criticisms, thus continuing the procession towards 'new knowledge' and emancipation, or freedom, through their motions back and forth. (shrink)

I discuss various formulations of stochastic Einstein locality (SEL), which is a version of the idea of relativistic causality, that is, the idea that influences propagate at most as fast as light. SEL is similar to Reichenbach's Principle of the Common Cause (PCC), and Bell's Local Causality. My main aim is to discuss formulations of SEL for a fixed background spacetime. I previously argued that SEL is violated by the outcome dependence shown by Bell correlations, both in quantum mechanics and (...) in quantum field theory. Here I reassess those verdicts in the light of some recent literature which argues that outcome dependence does not violate the PCC. I argue that the verdicts about SEL still stand. Finally, I briefly discuss how to formulate relativistic causality if there is no fixed background spacetime. (shrink)