Mathematics and reality: Two notions of spacetime in the analytic and constructionist views of gauge field theories

Philosophy of Science 67 (3):494 (2000)
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Abstract

This paper presents two interpretations of the fiber bundle formalism that is applicable to all gauge field theories. The constructionist interpretation yields a substantival spacetime. The analytic interpretation yields a structural spacetime, a third option besides the familiar substantivalism and relationalism. That the same mathematical formalism can be derived in two different ways leading to two different ontological interpretations reveals the inadequacy of pure formal arguments

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Citations of this work

Newton, the Parts of Space, and the Holism of Spatial Ontology.Edward Slowik - 2011 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 1 (2):249-272.

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References found in this work

Is There a Problem About Substitutional Quantification?Saul A. Kripke - 1976 - In Gareth Evans & John Henry McDowell (eds.), Truth and meaning: essays in semantics. Oxford [Eng.]: Clarendon Press. pp. 324-419.
Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton.Isaac Newton, A. Rupert Hall & Marie Boas Hall - 1963 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 13 (52):344-345.

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