I argue that scientific and poetic modes of objectivity are perspectival duals: 'views' from and onto basic natural forces, respectively. I ground this analysis in a general account of objectivity, not in terms of either 'universal' or 'inter-subjective' validity, but as receptivity to basic features of reality. Contra traditionalists, bare truth, factual knowledge, and universally valid representation are not inherently valuable. But modern critics who focus primarily on the self-expressive aspect of science are also wrong to claim that our knowledge (...) is or should be ultimately mediated by ourselves. In objective science, we represent nature as a field of phenomena determined by and within explanatorily-basic physical structures that encode the causal impact of elemental physical forces. These causally-basic forces hence ground the possibility of objective scientific theory, even though (I argue) they are systematically excluded from its representational contents. I show how my notions of force and field emerge partly through my effort to naturalize concepts of 'God' and 'Laws' in 17th-century natural philosophy. In science, we use the structure of basic forces' impact to see corresponding objects. We do not see these forces themselves—and this relates to the 'transcendence' of 'God'. I supplement this historical analysis by critiquing standard accounts of objectivity, and by synthesizing elements from neo-Kantian epistemology and current 'structural' realism into a view that I call 'dynamic structuralism'. Finally, I argue that physics systematically relies on passive characterizations of phenomena like inertia and impressed force. Dynamic alternatives that are just as empirically adequate are possible, but they are non-scientific. Poetic objectivity involves a direct presentation of nature as an order of interacting forces. I elaborate first by developing a novel theory of the relation between beauty and sublimity, mediated by a basic category of 'sensory force' (e.g. a 'singing' tone in a beautiful melody). I then describe the interaction between sensory and affective dimensions of aesthetic experience, in relation to an original historical analysis of passion and 'disinterestedness' in Kant, Schiller and Nietzsche. I synthesize these lines of analysis into a critique of the role of 'expression' in art. I also resist 'spectator'-centric aesthetics, in this connection, by developing an account of artistic objectivity in dialogue with Ruskin's critique of the 'pathetic fallacy'. I contrast artistic objectivity with Romantic ideals of self-expression, while elaborating its positive relation to certain currents within Victorian and Modernist aesthetics, including Imagists' stress on 'exteriority'. My project creatively extends Nietzsche's view that philosophical and scientific theories are 'perspectival' expressions of theorists' drives. It is a virtue of Nietzsche's account that he takes the outlet of strong human drives in creative acts of theorizing to be just one among many higher modes of 'will to power' in nature—many of which are totally impersonal. But Nietzsche is still too focused on self-expression or willing one's own power. Objective science involves external forces' 'expression' in and through us, not just 'expressing' our own powers. And Nietzsche's vitalistic 'will to power' must be replaced by a basic ontology that better accommodates inorganic phenomena, like the 'lawful' order of celestial motions. Thus I aim to de-anthropomorphize and 'de-organicize' post-Kantian notions of willful striving and organic development, while preserving for force the primary ontological and evaluative status that theorists from Schiller and Goethe to Schelling and Schlegel to Emerson and Nietzsche attributed to will or to life. (shrink)

The volume includes twenty-five research papers presented as gifts to John L. Bell to celebrate his 60th birthday by colleagues, former students, friends and admirers. Like Bell’s own work, the contributions cross boundaries into several inter-related fields. The contributions are new work by highly respected figures, several of whom are among the key figures in their fields. Some examples: in foundations of maths and logic ; analytical philosophy, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics and decision theory and foundations of economics. (...) Most articles are contributions to current philosophical debates, but contributions also include some new mathematical results, important historical surveys, and a translation by Wilfrid Hodges of a key work of arabic logic. (shrink)

I argue that the best interpretation of the general theory of relativity has need of a causal entity, and causal structure that is not reducible to light cone structure. I suggest that this causal interpretation of GTR helps defeat a key premise in one of the most popular arguments for causal reductionism, viz., the argument from physics.

This article introduces Harvey Brown and Oliver Pooley’s ‘dynamical approach’ to special relativity, and argues that it may be construed as a relationalist form of Einstein’s ‘practical geometry’. This construal of the dynamical approach is shown to be compatible with related chapters of Brown’s text and also with recent descriptions of the dynamical approach by Pooley and others.

This essay explores the possibility of constructing a structural realist interpretation of spacetime theories that can resolve the ontological debate between substantivalists and relationists. Drawing on various structuralist approaches in the philosophy of mathematics, as well as on the theoretical complexities of general relativity, our investigation will reveal that a structuralist approach can be beneficial to the spacetime theorist as a means of deflating some of the ontological disputes regarding similarly structured spacetimes.

I examine two claims that arise in Brown’s account of inertial motion. Brown claims there is something objectionable about the way in which the motions of free particles in Newtonian theory and special relativity are coordinated. Brown also claims that since a geodesic principle can be derived in Einsteinian gravitation, the objectionable feature is explained away. I argue that there is nothing objectionable about inertia and that while the theorems that motivate Brown’s second claim can be said to figure in (...) a deductive-nomological explanation, their main contribution lies in their explication rather than their explanation of inertial motion. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Highlights of Past Literature Current Work Future Work.

This paper considers the evolution of the problem of scientific rationality from Kant through Carnap to Kuhn. I argue for a relativized and historicized version of the original Kantian conception of scientific a priori principles and examine the way in which these principles change and develop across revolutionary paradigm shifts. The distinctively philosophical enterprise of reflecting upon and contextualizing such principles is then seen to play a key role in making possible rational intersubjective communication between otherwise incommensurable paradigms.

Debates about the ontological implications of the general theory of relativity have long oscillated between spacetime substantivalism and relationism. I evaluate such debates by claiming that we need a third option, which I refer to as “structural spacetime realism.” Such a tertium quid sides with the relationists in defending the relational nature of the spacetime structure, but joins the substantivalists in arguing that spacetime exists, at least in part, independently of particular physical objects and events, the degree of “independence” being (...) given by the extent to which geometrical laws exist “over and above” physical events exemplifying them. By showing that structural spacetime realism is the natural outcome of a semantic, model-theoretic approach to the nature of scientific theories, I conclude by arguing that the notion of partial isomorphic representation is the most plausible candidate to connect spacetime models with reality. (shrink)

(2007). Relativity Theory between Structural and Dynamical Explanations. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 95-102.

Michel Janssen and Harvey Brown have driven a prominent recent debate concerning the direction of an alleged arrow of explanation between Minkowski spacetime and Lorentz invariance of dynamical laws in special relativity. In this article, I critically assess this controversy with the aim of clarifying the explanatory foundations of the theory. First, I show that two assumptions shared by the parties—that the dispute is independent of issues concerning spacetime ontology, and that there is an urgent need for a constructive interpretation (...) of special relativity—are problematic and negatively affect the debate. Second, I argue that the whole discussion relies on a misleading conception of the link between Minkowski spacetime structure and Lorentz invari-ance, a misconception that in turn sheds more shadows than light on our understand-ing of the explanatory nature and power of Einstein’s theory. I state that the arrow connecting Lorentz invariance and Minkowski spacetime is not explanatory and uni-directional, but analytic and bidirectional, and that this analytic arrow grounds the chronogeometric explanations of physical phenomena that special relativity offers. (shrink)

The word “effective” has become the standard label attached to scientific theories these days. An effective theory allows us to make accurate predictions about a physical system at a certain (energy, length) scale while being largely ignorant of the details at more fundamental levels. One does not need to know anything about the deeper, quantum structure of water molecules to describe the macroscopic behaviour of waves or water in a glass. Although effective descriptions so broadly construed have been part of (...) research in physics since the earliest stages of modern science, it is particle physics that has most clearly relied on and brought to the fore some of the most interesting and admittedly puzzling aspects of this way of looking at theories. Indeed, the effective field theory (EFT) program in QFT has established itself as the most natural way to understand renormalisation and dissipate initial reservations about the status of these techniques by treating higher-order processes as contributions suppressed at lower energy scales. QFT is thus treated as the “effective” framework par excellence with the decoupling of scales constituting its permeating tenet. The goal of this project is to attempt a philosophical appraisal of EFTs as currently used in high energy physics as well as assess the possibility that the whole program eventually breaks down, i.e. fails to apply when certain preconditions do not hold. Accordingly, the dissertation is logically divided into two parts with the first two chapters dedicated to discussion of the relation between EFTs and traditional questions in the philosophy of science concerning the structure of scientific theories, the formulation and defence of scientific realism as well as its connection to possible ontological readings of EFTs. The second part constitutes an analysis of two well-known problems that have been accorded the status of crises in the physics literature: the hierarchy problem and the cosmological constant problem. Our main focus will be to uncover those assumptions responsible for undermining the validity of the EFT techniques in their respective context. In light of this analysis, we will ultimately lean towards a more cautionary or “reserved” approach to EFTs. (shrink)

The debate on the ontological status of spacetime in General Relativity has historically seen two principal philosophical contenders: substantivalism, roughly the view that holds that spacetime exists apart from the material contents of the universe, and relationism, the doctrine that spacetime does not exist, i.e., it is a mere abstract web of spatiotemporal relations among bodies. This dispute, however, has rarely been fought on a cosmological battlefield. In this paper an attempt in this direction is made. The question at issue (...) is the following: is there any feature of our universe that requires or is best explained in terms of a substantival space? I claim that there is indeed: the expansion of the universe, perhaps the most important phenomenon in cosmology, can play such a role. (shrink)

Substantivalists believe that spacetime and its parts are fundamental constituents of reality. Relationalists deny this, claiming that spacetime enjoys only a derivative existence. I begin by describing how the Galilean symmetries of Newtonian physics tell against both Newton's brand of substantivalism and the most obvious relationalist alternative. I then review the obvious substantivalist response to the problem, which is to ditch substantival space for substantival spacetime. The resulting position has many affinities with what are arguably the most natural interpretations of (...) special and general relativity. I move on to consider and reject two recent antisubstantivalist lines of thought. The interim conclusion is that the best argument for relationalism is an appeal to Ockham's razor. However, for this to be successful there must be genuine relationalist theories that share the theoretical virtues of their substantivalist rivals but without the additional ontological commitment. The bulk of the paper is therefore an investigation of various concrete relationalist proposals. I distinguish three options for the relationalist in the face of the success of Galilean invariant physics and trace how these generalise to relativistic physics. One of the options is particularly promising but, since its basic objects end up being spacetime points, this does not help the prospects of relationalism as traditionally conceived. I end with some reflections on the fate of substantivalism in the aftermath of the Hole Argument, concluding that we have as yet to be given good reasons to abandon the natural, substantivalist interpretation of current physics. (shrink)

The evolution of gravitational tests from an epistemological perspective framed in the concept of rational reconstruction of Imre Lakatos, based on his methodology of research programmes. Unlike other works on the same subject, the evaluated period is very extensive, starting with Newton's natural philosophy and up to the quantum gravity theories of today. In order to explain in a more rational way the complex evolution of the gravity concept of the last century, I propose a natural extension of the methodology (...) of the research programmes of Lakatos that I then use during the paper. I believe that this approach offers a new perspective on how evolved over time the concept of gravity and the methods of testing each theory of gravity, through observations and experiments. I argue, based on the methodology of the research programmes and the studies of scientists and philosophers, that the current theories of quantum gravity are degenerative, due to the lack of experimental evidence over a long period of time and of self-immunization against the possibility of falsification. Moreover, a methodological current is being developed that assigns a secondary, unimportant role to verification through observations and/or experiments. For this reason, it will not be possible to have a complete theory of quantum gravity in its current form, which to include to the limit the general relativity, since physical theories have always been adjusted, during their evolution, based on observational or experimental tests, and verified by the predictions made. Also, contrary to a widespread opinion and current active programs regarding the unification of all the fundamental forces of physics in a single final theory, based on string theory, I argue that this unification is generally unlikely, and it is not possible anyway for a unification to be developed based on current theories of quantum gravity, including string theory. In addition, I support the views of some scientists and philosophers that currently too much resources are being consumed on the idea of developing quantum gravity theories, and in particular string theory, to include general relativity and to unify gravity with other forces, as long as science does not impose such research programs. -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.35350.70724 . (shrink)

Evoluția testelor gravitaționale dintr-o perspectivă epistemologică încadrată în conceputul de reconstrucție rațională al lui Imre Lakatos, pe baza metodologiei acestuia a programelor de cercetare. Perioada evaluată este foarte vastă, începând cu filosofia naturală a lui Newton și până la teoriile gravitației cuantice din zilele noastre. Pentru a explica mai rațional evoluția complexă a conceptului de gravitație din ultimul secol, propun o extindere naturală a metodologiei programelor de cercetare pe care o folosesc apoi pe parcursul lucrării. Consider că această abordare oferă (...) o nouă perspectivă asupra modului în care au evaluat în timp conceptul de gravitație și metodele de testare a fiecărei teorii a gravitației, prin observații și experimente. Argumentez, pe baza metodologiei programelor de cercetare și a studiilor oamenilor de știință și filosofilor, că actualele teorii ale gravitației cuantice sunt degenerative, datorită lipsei dovezilor experimentale pe o perioadă îndelungată de timp și a auto-imunizării împotriva posibilității falsificării. Mai mult, în prezent este în curs de dezvoltare un curent metodologic care atribuie un rol secundar, neimportant, verificărilor prin observații și/sau experimente. Din această cauză, nu va fi posibilă o teorie completă a gravitației cuantice în forma actuală care să includă la limită relativitatea generală, întrucât teoriile fizice au fost dintotdeauna ajustate, în decursul evoluției lor, pe baza testelor observaționale sau experimentale, și verificate prin predicțiile făcute. De asemenea, contrar unei opinii răspândite și a unor programe active actuale privind unificarea tuturor forțelor fundamentale ale fizicii într-o singură teorie finală, pe baza teoriei corzilor, argumentez că este puțin probabil în general să se realizeze această unificare, și nu este posibil oricum ca unificarea să se elaboreze pe baza teoriilor actuale ale gravitației cuantice, inclusiv prin teoria corzilor. În plus, susțin punctele de vedere ale unor oameni de știință și filosofi că în prezent se consumă mult prea multe resurse pe ideea dezvoltării teoriilor gravitației cuantice, și în special teoria corzilor, care să includă relativitatea generală și să unifice gravitația cu celelalte forțe, în condițiile în care știința nu impune astfel de programe de cercetare. -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14582.75842 . (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the `Lorentzian Pedagogy' defended by J.S. Bell in his essay ``How to teach special relativity'', and to explore its consistency with Einstein's thinking from 1905 to 1952. Some remarks are also made in this context on Weyl's philosophy of relativity and his 1918 gauge theory. Finally, it is argued that the Lorentzian pedagogy---which stresses the important connection between kinematics and dynamics---clarifies the role of rods and clocks in general relativity.

In this paper I try to sort out a tangle of issues regarding time, inertia, proper time and the so-called “clock hypothesis” raised by Harvey Brown's discussion of them in his recent book, Physical Relativity. I attempt to clarify the connection between time and inertia, as well as the deficiencies in Newton's “derivation” of Corollary 5, by giving a group theoretic treatment original with J.-P. Provost. This shows how both the Galilei and Lorentz transformations may be derived from the relativity (...) principle on the basis of certain elementary assumptions regarding time. I then reflect on the implications of this derivation for understanding proper time and the clock hypothesis. (shrink)