Mechanism and Poincaré’s Critiques on Classical Mechanics

Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 43:171-177 (2008)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Mechanism is a conception of the world according to which all can be explained by mechanics expressed by its fundamental concepts and principles. I’ll firstly show that, following Poincaré’s discussion on mechanical explanation, the very foundation of classical mechanics implicates that all just can’t be explained. Next, I’ll discuss the principles of mechanics as they are viewed by Poincaré, especially the principle of relativity that has a particularity in its form of “pseudo-universal”argument, as well as in its fundamental role for experiences. It will be finally revealed that, the mechanism can be used as a convention, because, by the principle of relativity, we can have only local experiments but never on the universe, and consequently, non of our experiences would never lead us to any phenomenon irreducible to mechanics. Nevertheless, it doesn’t exclude the contrary possibility: experiences can reveal that it is not to commode as it used to be, without disapproving it.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Poincaré’s Discussion on Mechanism and Principle of Relativity.Jee Sun Rhee - 2008 - Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 43:179-184.
Poincaré’s Critiques on Classical Mechanics.Jee Sun Rhee - 2008 - Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 43:165-170.
On the Classical Limit of Quantum Mechanics.Valia Allori & Nino Zanghì - 2008 - Foundations of Physics 10.1007/S10701-008-9259-4 39 (1):20-32.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-04-04

Downloads
20 (#656,480)

6 months
2 (#670,035)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references