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  1. Electronegativity as a New Case for Emergence and a New Problem for Reductionism.Monte Cairns - forthcoming - Foundations of Chemistry.
    The potential reducibility of chemical entities to their physical bases is a matter of dispute between ontological reductionists on one hand, and emergentists on the other. However, relevant debates typically revolve around the reducibility of so-called ‘higher-level’ chemical entities, such as molecules. Perhaps surprisingly, even committed proponents of emergence for these higher-level chemical entities appear to accept that the ‘lowest-level’ chemical entities – atomic species – are reducible to their physical bases. In particular, the microstructural view of chemical elements, actively (...)
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  2. Two Approaches to Reduction: A Case Study from Statistical Mechanics.Bixin Guo - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science:1-36.
    I argue that there are two distinct approaches to understanding reduction: the ontology-first approach and the theory-first approach. They concern the relation between ontological reduction and inter-theoretic reduction. Further, I argue for the significance of this distinction by demonstrating that either one or the other approach has been taken as an implicit assumption in, and has in fact shaped, our understanding of what statistical mechanics is. More specifically, I argue that the Boltzmannian framework of statistical mechanics assumes and relies on (...)
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  3. Logic, mathematics, physics: from a loose thread to the close link: Or what gravity is for both logic and mathematics rather than only for physics.Vasil Penchev - 2023 - Astrophysics, Cosmology and Gravitation Ejournal 2 (52):1-82.
    Gravitation is interpreted to be an “ontomathematical” force or interaction rather than an only physical one. That approach restores Newton’s original design of universal gravitation in the framework of “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, which allows for Einstein’s special and general relativity to be also reinterpreted ontomathematically. The entanglement theory of quantum gravitation is inherently involved also ontomathematically by virtue of the consideration of the qubit Hilbert space after entanglement as the Fourier counterpart of pseudo-Riemannian space. Gravitation can be (...)
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  4. MASS SURVEILLANCE, BEHAVIOURAL CONTROL, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL COERCION THE MORAL ETHICAL RISKS IN COMMERCIAL DEVICES.Yang Immanuel Pachankis - 2022 - In David C. Wyld & Dhinaharan Nagamalai (eds.), Computer Science and Information Technology. pp. 151-168.
    The research observed, in parallel and comparatively, a surveillance state’s use of communication & cyber networks with satellite applications for power political & realpolitik purposes, in contrast to the outer space security & legit scientific purpose driven cybernetics. The research adopted a psychoanalytic & psychosocial method of observation in the organizational behaviors of the surveillance state, and a theoretical physics, astrochemical, & cosmological feedback method in the contrast group of cybernetics. Military sociology and multilateral movements were adopted in the diagnostic (...)
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  5. Does von Neumann Entropy Correspond to Thermodynamic Entropy?Eugene Y. S. Chua - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (1):145-168.
    Conventional wisdom holds that the von Neumann entropy corresponds to thermodynamic entropy, but Hemmo and Shenker (2006) have recently argued against this view by attacking von Neumann's (1955) argument. I argue that Hemmo and Shenker's arguments fail due to several misunderstandings: about statistical-mechanical and thermodynamic domains of applicability, about the nature of mixed states, and about the role of approximations in physics. As a result, their arguments fail in all cases: in the single-particle case, the finite particles case, and the (...)
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  6. Idealizations and Analogies: Explaining Critical Phenomena.Quentin Rodriguez - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 89 (C):235-247.
    The “universality” of critical phenomena is much discussed in philosophy of scientific explanation, idealizations and philosophy of physics. Lange and Reutlinger recently opposed Batterman concerning the role of some deliberate distortions in unifying a large class of phenomena, regardless of microscopic constitution. They argue for an essential explanatory role for “commonalities” rather than that of idealizations. Building on Batterman's insight, this article aims to show that assessing the differences between the universality of critical phenomena and two paradigmatic cases of “commonality (...)
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  7. Contextual Emergence of Physical Properties.Robert C. Bishop & George F. R. Ellis - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (5):481-510.
    Contextual emergence was originally proposed as an inter-level relation between different levels of description to describe an epistemic notion of emergence in physics. Here, we discuss the ontic extension of this relation to different domains or levels of physical reality using the properties of temperature and molecular shape as detailed case studies. We emphasize the concepts of stability conditions and multiple realizability as key features of contextual emergence. Some broader implications contextual emergence has for the foundations of physics and cognitive (...)
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  8. (1 other version)What is the Point of Reduction in Science?Karen Crowther - 2020 - Erkenntnis 85 (6):1437-1460.
    The numerous and diverse roles of theory reduction in science have been insufficiently explored in the philosophy literature on reduction. Part of the reason for this has been a lack of attention paid to reduction2 (successional reduction)—although I here argue that this sense of reduction is closer to reduction1 (explanatory reduction) than is commonly recognised, and I use an account of reduction that is neutral between the two. This paper draws attention to the utility—and incredible versatility—of theory reduction. A non-exhaustive (...)
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  9. Interpretation neutrality in the classical domain of quantum theory.Joshua Rosaler - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 53:54-72.
    I show explicitly how concerns about wave function collapse and ontology can be decoupled from the bulk of technical analysis necessary to recover localized, approximately Newtonian trajectories from quantum theory. In doing so, I demonstrate that the account of classical behavior provided by decoherence theory can be straightforwardly tailored to give accounts of classical behavior on multiple interpretations of quantum theory, including the Everett, de Broglie-Bohm and GRW interpretations. I further show that this interpretation-neutral, decoherence-based account conforms to a general (...)
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  10. Is de Broglie-Bohm Theory Specially Equipped to Recover Classical Behavior?Joshua Rosaler - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (5):1175-1187.
    Supporters of the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of quantum theory argue that because the theory, like classical mechanics, concerns the motions of point particles in 3D space, it is specially suited to recover classical behavior. I offer a novel account of classicality in dBB theory, if only to show that such an account falls out almost trivially from results developed in the largely interpretation-neutral context of decoherence theory. I then argue that this undermines any special claim that dBB theory is purported (...)
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  11. Local reduction in physics.Joshua Rosaler - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 50 (C):54-69.
    A conventional wisdom about the progress of physics holds that successive theories wholly encompass the domains of their predecessors through a process that is often called reduction. While certain influential accounts of inter-theory reduction in physics take reduction to require a single "global" derivation of one theory's laws from those of another, I show that global reductions are not available in all cases where the conventional wisdom requires reduction to hold. However, I argue that a weaker "local" form of reduction, (...)
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  12. “Formal” Versus “Empirical” Approaches to Quantum–Classical Reduction.Joshua Rosaler - 2015 - Topoi 34 (2):325-338.
    I distinguish two types of reduction within the context of quantum-classical relations, which I designate “formal” and “empirical”. Formal reduction holds or fails to hold solely by virtue of the mathematical relationship between two theories; it is therefore a two-place, a priori relation between theories. Empirical reduction requires one theory to encompass the range of physical behaviors that are well-modeled in another theory; in a certain sense, it is a three-place, a posteriori relation connecting the theories and the domain of (...)
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  13. Review of M. Thalos' "Without Hierarchy". [REVIEW]Amit Hagar - 2014 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 201410.
  14. Chance and Temporal Asymmetry.Alastair Wilson (ed.) - 2014 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    This volume presents twelve original essays on the metaphysics of science, with particular focus on the physics of chance and time. Experts in the field subject familiar approaches to searching critiques, and make bold new proposals in a number of key areas. Together, they set the agenda for future work on the subject.
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  15. The Constraint Interpretation of Physical Emergence.James Blachowicz - 2013 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 44 (1):21-40.
    I develop a variant of the constraint interpretation of the emergence of purely physical (non-biological) entities, focusing on the principle of the non-derivability of actual physical states from possible physical states (physical laws) alone. While this is a necessary condition for any account of emergence, it is not sufficient, for it becomes trivial if not extended to types of constraint that specifically constitute physical entities, namely, those that individuate and differentiate them. Because physical organizations with these features are in fact (...)
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  16. A Unified Cognitive Model of Visual Filling-In Based on an Emergic Network Architecture.David Pierre Leibovitz - 2013 - Dissertation, Carleton University
    The Emergic Cognitive Model (ECM) is a unified computational model of visual filling-in based on the Emergic Network architecture. The Emergic Network was designed to help realize systems undergoing continuous change. In this thesis, eight different filling-in phenomena are demonstrated under a regime of continuous eye movement (and under static eye conditions as well). -/- ECM indirectly demonstrates the power of unification inherent with Emergic Networks when cognition is decomposed according to finer-grained functions supporting change. These can interact to raise (...)
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  17. The past histories of molecules.Craig Callender - 2011 - In Claus Beisbart & Stephan Hartmann (eds.), Probabilities in Physics. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 83--113.
    This chapter unfolds a central philosophical problem of statistical mechanics. This problem lies in a clash between the Static Probabilities offered by statistical mechanics and the Dynamic Probabilities provided by classical or quantum mechanics. The chapter looks at the Boltzmann and Gibbs approaches in statistical mechanics and construes some of the great controversies in the field — for instance the Reversibility Paradox — as instances of this conflict. It furthermore argues that a response to this conflict is a critical choice (...)
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  18. The Relation between Classical and Quantum Electrodynamics.Mario Bacelar Valente - 2011 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 26 (1):51-68.
    Quantum electrodynamics presents intrinsic limitations in the description of physical processes that make it impossible to recover from it the type of description we have in classical electrodynamics. Hence one cannot consider classical electrodynamics as reducing to quantum electrodynamics and being recovered from it by some sort of limiting procedure. Quantum electrodynamics has to be seen not as a more fundamental theory, but as an upgrade of classical electrodynamics, which permits an extension of classical theory to the description of phenomena (...)
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  19. Reduction and renormalization.Robert Batterman - 2010 - In Gerhard Ernst & Andreas Hüttemann (eds.), Time, chance and reduction: philosophical aspects of statistical mechanics. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 159--179.
    This paper discusses the alleged reduction of Thermodynamics to Statistical Mechanics. It includes an historical discussion of J. Willard Gibbs' famous caution concerning the connections between thermodynamic properties and statistical mechanical properties---his so-called ``Thermodynamic Analogies.'' The reasons for Gibbs' caution are reconsidered in light of relatively recent work in statistical physics on the existence of the thermodynamic limit and the explanation of critical behavior using the renormalization group apparatus. A probabilistic understanding of the renormalization group arguments allows for a kind (...)
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  20. Studying marginalised physical sciences.Sean F. Johnston - 2007 - ‘Writing the History’ of the Physical Sciences After 1945: State of the Art, Questions, and Perspectives, Strasbourg, 8-9 June 2007.
    The second half of the twentieth century offers distinct perspectives for the historian of science. The role of the State, the expansion of certain industries and the cultural engagement with science were all transformed. The foregrounding of certain strands of physical science in the public and administrative consciousness – nuclear physics and planetary science, for example – had a complement: the ‘backgrounding’ or institutional neglect of a number of other fields. My work in the history of the physical sciences has (...)
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  21. Response to Belot’s “Whose Devil? Which Details?‘.Robert W. Batterman - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (1):154-163.
    I respond to Belot's argument and defend the view that sometimes `fundamental theories' are explanatorily inadequate and need to be supplemented with certain aspects of less fundamental `theories emeritus'.
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  22. Whose Devil? Which Details?Gordon Belot - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (1):128-153.
    Batterman has recently argued that fundamental theories are typically explanatorily inadequate, in that there exist physical phenomena whose explanation requires that the conceptual apparatus of a fundamental theory be supplemented by that of a less fundamental theory. This paper is an extended critical commentary on that argument: situating its importance, describing its structure, and developing a line of objection to it. The objection is that in the examples Batterman considers, the mathematics of the less fundamental theory is definable in terms (...)
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  23. Chance and time.Amit Hagar - 2004 - Dissertation, Ubc
    One of the recurrent problems in the foundations of physics is to explain why we rarely observe certain phenomena that are allowed by our theories and laws. In thermodynamics, for example, the spontaneous approach towards equilibrium is ubiquitous yet the time-reversal-invariant laws that presumably govern thermal behaviour in the microscopic level equally allow spontaneous departure from equilibrium to occur. Why are the former processes frequently observed while the latter are almost never reported? Another example comes from quantum mechanics where the (...)
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  24. Protecting cognitive science from quantum theory.David Wallace - 2004 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (5):636-637.
    The relation between micro-objects and macro-objects advocated by Kim is even more problematic than Ross & Spurrett (R&S) argue, for reasons rooted in physics. R&S's own ontological proposals are much more satisfactory from a physicist's viewpoint but may still be problematic. A satisfactory theory of macroscopic ontology must be as independent as possible of the details of microscopic physics.
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  25. (1 other version)The devil in the details: asymptotic reasoning in explanation, reduction, and emergence.Robert W. Batterman - 2002 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Robert Batterman examines a form of scientific reasoning called asymptotic reasoning, arguing that it has important consequences for our understanding of the scientific process as a whole. He maintains that asymptotic reasoning is essential for explaining what physicists call universal behavior. With clarity and rigor, he simplifies complex questions about universal behavior, demonstrating a profound understanding of the underlying structures that ground them. This book introduces a valuable new method that is certain to fill explanatory gaps across disciplines.
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  26. Review of Robert W. Batterman, The Devil in the Details: Asymptotic Reasoning in Explanation, Reduction and Emergence[REVIEW]C. A. Hooker - 2002 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002 (10).
  27. Chaos and fundamentalism.Gordon Belot - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (3):465.
    1. It is natural to wonder what our multitude of successful physical theories tell us about the world—singly, and as a body. What are we to think when one theory tells us about a flat Newtonian spacetime, the next about a curved Lorentzian geometry, and we have hints of others, portraying discrete or higher-dimensional structures which look something like more familiar spacetimes in appropriate limits?
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  28. ‘Into a Mist’: Asymptotic theories on a caustic.Robert W. Batterman - 1997 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 28 (3):395-413.
  29. Similarities and dissimilarities between Joseph Priestley's and Antoine Lavoisier's chemical beliefs.Prajit K. Basu - 1991 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 23 (3):445-469.
  30. Towards a General Theory of Reduction. Part II: Identity in Reduction.C. A. Hooker - 1981 - Dialogue 20 (2):201-236.
    Part I of this trilogy, Historical and Scientific Setting, set out a general context for selecting a certain subclass of inter-theoretic relations as achieving appropriate explanatory and ontological unification – hence for properly being labelled reductive. Something of the complexity of these relations in real science was explored. The present article concentrates on the role which identity plays in structuring the reduction relation and so in achieving ontological and explanatory unification.
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  31. Towards a General Theory of Reduction. Part III: Cross-Categorical Reduction.C. A. Hooker - 1981 - Dialogue 20 (3):496-529.
    Any theory of reduction that goes only so far as carried in Parts I and II does only half the job. Prima facie at least, there are cases of would-be reduction which seem torn between two conflicting intuitions. On the one side there is a strong intuition that reduction is involved, and a strongly retentive reduction at that. On the other side it seems that the concepts at one level cross-classify those at the other level, so that there is no (...)
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  32. Review: Ronald Yoshida's Reduction in the physical sciences. [REVIEW]Paul Teller - 1980 - Noûs 14 (1):136 - 30.
  33. Approaches to reduction.Kenneth F. Schaffner - 1967 - Philosophy of Science 34 (2):137-147.
    Four current accounts of theory reduction are presented, first informally and then formally: (1) an account of direct theory reduction that is based on the contributions of Nagel, Woodger, and Quine, (2) an indirect reduction paradigm due to Kemeny and Oppenheim, (3) an "isomorphic model" schema traceable to Suppes, and (4) a theory of reduction that is based on the work of Popper, Feyerabend, and Kuhn. Reference is made, in an attempt to choose between these schemas, to the explanation of (...)
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  34. Inter-Theory Relations in Physics: Case Studies from Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory.Joshua Rosaler - unknown
    I defend three general claims concerning inter-theoretic reduction in physics. First, the popular notion that a superseded theory in physics is generally a simple limit of the theory that supersedes it paints an oversimplified picture of reductive relations in physics. Second, where reduction specifically between two dynamical systems models of a single system is concerned, reduction requires the existence of a particular sort of function from the state space of the low-level model to that of the high-level model that approximately (...)
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