DOCSLIB.ORG

STUDIES on REPRESENTATION and IDEALIZATION By

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
STUDIES on REPRESENTATION and IDEALIZATION By ASSUME A SPHERICAL COW: STUDIES ON REPRESENTATION AND IDEALIZATION by Elay Shech B.A., Philosophy, Boston University, 2007 B.A., Physics, Boston University, 2007 M.A., Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, 2012 M.A., History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 2012 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History and Philosophy of Science University of Pittsburgh 2015 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Elay Shech It was defended on March 30th, 2015 and approved by John D. Norton, PhD, History and Philosophy of Science John Earman, PhD, History and Philosophy of Science Robert Batterman, PhD, Philosophy Giovanni Valente, PhD, Philosophy Laura Ruetsche, PhD, Philosophy (University of Michigan) Dissertation Advisors: John D. Norton, PhD, History and Philosophy of Science John Earman, PhD, History and Philosophy of Science ii Copyright © by Elay Shech 2015 iii ASSUME A SPHERICAL COW: STUDIES ON REPRESENTATION AND IDEALIZATION Elay Shech, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2015 This dissertation concerns the philosophical underpinnings of representation and idealization in science. I begin by looking at the philosophical debate revolving around phase transitions and use it as a foil to bring out what I take to be most interesting about phase transitions, namely, the manner by which they illustrate the problem of essential idealizations. I continue to solve the problem in several steps. First, I conduct an interdisciplinary comparative study of different types of representations (e.g., mental, linguistic, pictorial) and consequently promote a content- based account of scientific representation intended to accommodate the practice of idealization and misrepresentation. I then critically asses the literature on idealizations in science in order to identify the manner by which to justify appeals to idealizations in science, and implement such techniques in two case studies that merit special attention: the Aharonov-Bohm effect and the quantum Hall effects. I proceed to offer a characterization of essential idealizations meant to alleviate the woes associated with said problem, and argue that particular types of idealizations, dubbed pathological idealizations, ought to be dispensed with. My motto is that idealizations are essential to explanation and representation, as well as to methodology and pedagogy, but they essentially misrepresent. Implications for the debate on platonism about mathematical objects are outlined. Keywords: philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, representation, idealization, phase transitions, Aharonov-Bohm effect, fractional quantum statistics, quantum Hall effects. iv Dedicated to my parents, Orit & Aharon Shech v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................... XI LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. XII PREFACE ................................................................................................................................... XV 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER SUMMARY .......................................................... 7 2.0 THE PARADOX OF PHASE TRANSITIONS ....................................................... 15 2.1 WHAT IS THE “PARADOX OF PHASE TRANSITIONS”? ...................... 15 2.2 IDENTIFYING THE “PARADOX” OF PHASE TRANSITIONS .............. 20 2.2.1 The Bona Fide Paradox of Phase Transitions and its Generalization ...... 23 2.3 THE ESSENTIAL IDEALIZATION PROBLEM ......................................... 30 3.0 SCIENTIFIC MISREPRESENTATION AND GUIDES TO ONTOLOGY ....... 33 3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 33 3.2 SCIENTIFIC MISREPRESENTATION ........................................................ 36 3.3 REPRESENTATION ........................................................................................ 41 3.3.1 Intentionality, Reference, Contents and Code ............................................ 42 3.4 THE INFERENTIAL ACCOUNT AND REPRESENTATIONAL CODE . 45 3.5 THE INTERPRETATIONAL ACCOUNT AND REPRESENTATIONAL CONTENTS ........................................................................................................................ 51 vi 3.5.1 Contessa’s Analytical Interpretation ........................................................... 53 3.5.2 The Need for Representational Contents .................................................... 55 3.6 MISREPRESENTATION, FAITHFUL REPRESENTATION, AND GUIDES TO ONTOLOGY ............................................................................................... 62 3.7 THE ROAD AHEAD ......................................................................................... 68 4.0 IDEALIZATIONS IN SCIENCE ............................................................................. 74 4.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 74 4.2 IDEALIZATIONS, ABSTRACTIONS AND APPROXIMATIONS............ 77 4.3 TAXANOMIES OF IDEALIZATIONS .......................................................... 82 4.3.1 McMullin on Idealizations ............................................................................ 83 4.3.2 Weisberg on Idealizations ............................................................................. 86 4.3.3 Poznan School on Idealizations .................................................................... 92 4.3.4 Shaffer on Idealizations................................................................................. 94 4.3.5 Conclusion: The Earman-Ruetsche Sound Principle ................................. 98 4.4 IDEALIZATIONS IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE ................................. 100 4.4.1 Laws of Nature ............................................................................................. 101 4.4.2 Scientific Confirmation ............................................................................... 104 4.4.3 Scientific Explanation.................................................................................. 107 4.4.4 Scientific Realism ......................................................................................... 109 5.0 PATHOLOGICAL IDEALIZATIONS ................................................................. 115 5.1 LIMIT PROPERTIES AND LIMIT SYSTEMS .......................................... 115 5.2 THREE TYPES OF INCOMPATIBILITIES............................................... 123 5.3 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 125 vii 6.0 IDEALIZATIONS IN THE AHARONOV-BOHM EFFECT ............................. 127 6.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 127 6.2 THE RECEIVED VIEW OF THE AB EFFECT ......................................... 128 6.3 THE PARADOX OF THE AB EFFECT....................................................... 135 6.4 JUSTIFYING THE AB EFFECT: A NON-TOPOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION ........................................................................................................ 138 6.5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 145 7.0 TWO APPROACHES TO FRACTIONAL QUANTUM STATISTICS: PATHOLOGICAL IDEALIZATIONS AND THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE ANYON 147 7.1 FRACTIONAL QUANTUM STATISTICS AND THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE ANYON .................................................................................................................... 148 7.2 INTRODUCTION TO THE QUANTUM HALL EFFECTS ...................... 151 7.2.1 The Classical Hall Effect ............................................................................. 151 7.2.2 The Quantum Hall Effects .......................................................................... 155 7.3 THE TOPOLOGICAL APPROACH TO FRACTIONAL STATISTICS . 161 7.3.1 The Configuration Space Framework and QM on Multiply Connected Space ....................................................................................................................... 162 7.4 THE GEOMETRIC APPROACH TO FRACTIONAL STATISTICS ...... 168 7.5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 175 8.0 CAN AN IDEALIZATION BE ESSENTIAL? ..................................................... 178 8.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 178 8.2 ROLES FOR DEALIZATIONS IN SCIENCE ............................................ 181 8.2.1 Pedagogical Role .......................................................................................... 181 viii 8.2.2 Methodological Role .................................................................................... 184 8.3 ASYMPTOTIC EXPLANATION AND MINIMAL MODELS.................. 187 8.3.1 An Essentialist Objection ............................................................................ 195 8.4 A CHARACTERIZATION ............................................................................ 198 8.4.1 Emergence
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 2008. Pruning Some Branches from 'Branching Spacetimes'
    CHAPTER 10 Pruning Some Branches from “Branching Spacetimes” John Earman* Abstract Discussions of branching time and branching spacetime have become com- mon in the philosophical literature. If properly understood, these concep- tions can be harmless. But they are sometimes used in the service of debat- able and even downright pernicious doctrines. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the pernicious branching and prune it back. 1. INTRODUCTION Talk of “branching time” and “branching spacetime” is wide spread in the philo- sophical literature. Such expressions, if properly understood, can be innocuous. But they are sometimes used in the service of debatable and even downright per- nicious doctrines. The purpose of this paper is to identify the pernicious branching and prune it back. Section 2 distinguishes three types of spacetime branching: individual branch- ing, ensemble branching, and Belnap branching. Individual branching, as the name indicates, involves a branching structure in individual spacetime models. It is argued that such branching is neither necessary nor sufficient for indeterminism, which is explicated in terms of the branching in the ensemble of spacetime mod- els satisfying the laws of physics. Belnap branching refers to the sort of branching used by the Belnap school of branching spacetimes. An attempt is made to sit- uate this sort of branching with respect to ensemble branching and individual branching. Section 3 is a sustained critique of various ways of trying to imple- ment individual branching for relativistic spacetimes. Conclusions are given in Section 4. * Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA The Ontology of Spacetime II © Elsevier BV ISSN 1871-1774, DOI: 10.1016/S1871-1774(08)00010-7 All rights reserved 187 188 Pruning Some Branches from “Branching Spacetimes” 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Curriculum Vitæ Hans Halvorson
    Curriculum Vitæ Hans Halvorson Department of Philosophy Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 www.princeton.edu/~hhalvors Permanent positions 2010{ Professor, Princeton 2005{10 Associate Professor with Tenure, Princeton 2001{05 Assistant Professor, Princeton Temporary positions 2008{09 Visiting Researcher, Mathematical Institute, Utrecht (group of Ieke Moerdijk) 2006 Visiting Fellow, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Education 2001 PhD, Philosophy, Pittsburgh 1998 MA, Mathematics, Pittsburgh 1997 MA, Philosophy, Pittsburgh 1995 BA (honors), Philosophy, Calvin College Research focus Category Theory (especially Categorical Logic), Philosophy of Physics Areas of special competence Philosophical Logic, Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science Work in progress (selected) HH, \Essay review of Interpreting Quantum Theories," for Metascience. HH and Klaas Landsman, \Multiply connected spaces and identical particles." HH, \Does quantum mechanics kill time?" David Baker and HH, \How is spontaneous symmetry breaking possible?" HH and Noel Swanson, \Natural structure on state space" HH and Jim Weatherall, \What is a scientific theory?" Published articles HH. \What scientific theories could not be," forthcoming in Philosophy of Science. HH and Helge Kragh. \Theism and physical cosmology," forthcoming in The Routledge Companion to Theism, edited by C. Taliaferro. Routledge 2012. HH and Helge Kragh. \Cosmology and theology," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2011 Edition. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmology-theology/ HH. \The measure of all things: quantum mechanics and the soul." In The soul hypothesis: investigations into the existence of the soul edited by M. Baker and S. Goetz, pp. 138{163. Continuum Press 2010. Dave Baker and HH. \Antimatter." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61:93{121, 2010.
    [Show full text]
  • REBECCA KUKLA Curriculum Vitae – September 2014 [email protected]
    REBECCA KUKLA Curriculum Vitae – September 2014 [email protected] Professor of Philosophy Senior Research Scholar, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Georgetown University Washington, DC, USA EDUCATION Greenwall Postdoctoral Fellowship in Bioethics and Health Policy, Johns Hopkins University, 2003-05 Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, 1996 Dissertation: Creativity, Conformity, and the Social Constitution of the Subject. Director: John Haugeland. Committee: David Gauthier, Iris Young, Jennifer Whiting, Michael Thompson Honours B.A. (With High Distinction), Philosophy, University of Toronto, 1990 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION Social epistemology, philosophy of language, bioethics, philosophy of medicine and the special sciences, feminist philosophy. AREAS OF COMPETENCE Rousseau, Kant, metaethics, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, twentieth century European philosophy. PROFESSIONAL HONOURS AND AWARDS 2009 University of South Florida Creative Scholarship Award (honorary – monetary award declined) 2006-07 Canadian Philosophical Association Biennial Book Prize: Honourable Mention for Mass Hysteria: Medicine, Culture, and Mothers’ Bodies 2006-07 Marston LaFrance Research Fellow (annual award to the top researcher in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Carleton University) 2003-05 Greenwall Fellowship in Bioethics and Health Policy, Johns Hopkins University 2000-01 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Award for Teaching Excellence, Carleton University 1990-92 (Honorary fellow for 1994-5) National Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities FORMER ACADEMIC
    [Show full text]
  • 2005 Bulletin
    Volume 13 U N I V E R S I T Y OF P I T T S B U R G H B U L AUGUSTL E T 2005I N NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR 22. It was a great pleasure for Rutgers University) and I joined me to be involved in both. forces to organize a conference October 1-3 celebrating the During my eight years as Cen- contributions of our dear friend ter Director I have had the great Allan Gotthelf to the under- pleasure of working with standing of the philosophy and Gereon Wolters of Konstanz science of classical Greece. The and Peter Machamer of Pitts- program and pictures of the burgh (and their committees) event can be found on the on four Pittsburgh-Konstanz Center's web site among the Colloquia. May 26-30, 2005 Archived Events. Allan is cur- was our seventh, held in rently Visiting Professor of His- BULLETINBULLETIN Konstanz, as is fitting, given tory and Philosophy of Science that one of the architects of this thanks to a fellowship provided Table of Contents warm, multi-faceted coop- by the Anthem Foundation for erative venture, Jürgen the Study of Objectivism. 3 Visiting Fellows 2004-05 Jim Lennox Mittelstrass, retires this year. 6 In Memoriam: Ernst Mayr For the first time the event was October 12-14 we once again 7 Anjan Chakravartty he completion of my staged in the historic heart of co-sponsored the Nagel Lec- second (and final!) Konstanz, in the city's Cultural tures, organized every two years 8 In Memoriam: Eduardo H.
    [Show full text]
  • Lost in the Tensors: Einstein's Struggles with Covariance Principles 1912-1916"
    JOHN EARMAN and CLARK GL YMOUR LOST IN THE TENSORS: EINSTEIN'S STRUGGLES WITH COVARIANCE PRINCIPLES 1912-1916" Introduction IN 1912 Einstein began to devote a major portion of his time and energy to an attempt to construct a relativistic theory of gravitation. A strong intimation of the struggle that lay ahead is contained in a letter to Arnold Sommerfeld dated October 29, 1912: At the moment I am working solely on the problem of gravitation and believe 1 will be able to overcome all difficulties with the help of a local, friendly mathemat- ician. But one thing is certain, that I have never worked so hard in my life, and that I have been injected with a great awe of mathematics, which in my naivet~ until now I only viewed as a pure luxury in its subtler forms! Compared to this problem the original theory of relativity is mere child's play.' Einstein's letter contained only a perfunctory reply to a query from Sommerfeld about the Debye-Born theory of specific heats. Obviously disappointed, Som- merfeld wrote to Hilbert: 'My letter to Einstein was in vain . Einstein is evidently so deeply mired in gravitation that he is deaf to everything else? Sommerfeld's words were more prophetic than he could possibly have known; the next three years were to see Einstein deeply mired in gravitation, sometimes seemingly hopelessly so. In large measure, Einstein's struggle resulted from his use and his misuse, his understanding and his misunderstanding of the nature and implications of covariance principles. In brief, considerations of general covariance were bound up with Einstein's motive for seeking a 'generalized' theory of relativity; mis- understandings about the meaning and implementation of this motivation threatened to wreck the search; and in the end, the desire for general covariance helped to bring Einstein back onto the track which led to what we now recognize *Present address c/o Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn, U.S.A.
    [Show full text]
  • Michigan Philosophy News Fall 2014 for Friends, Alumni, Alumnae of the Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
    Michigan Philosophy News Fall 2014 For friends, alumni, alumnae of the Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor INSIDE THIS ISSUE Graduate and Undergraduate News Faculty Articles Recent Graduates Contributions Dear Friends of Michigan Philosophy, I write to you as the new Chair of Philosophy, succeeding Laura Ruetsche, who has gleefully passed the baton to me and is now enjoying a richly deserved sabbatical. I have been a faculty member in the Philosophy Department since 1987. I have chosen to build my career at University of Michigan because I have found it to be an unsurpassed place to be practicing and teaching philosophy at every level. I have never seen the Department in better shape than now. This owes a lot to Laura’s selfless service. It is an honor to have the support of my wonderful colleagues as I assume my duties as Chair, and a relief to take up those duties in a Department in such fine condition. Before we move on to our field reports from our faculty and graduate students, I’d like to share with you some Departmental news highlights. Faculty News This year Derrick Darby joins us as part of our permanent faculty, after spending a term here in Winter 2013. Derrick comes to us from University of Kansas, with specialties in social, political, and legal philosophy and philosophy of race. I taught his stimulating book, Rights, Race, and Recognition (Cambridge UP, 2009) in my advanced political philosophy class, where it was a hit with my students. In keeping with UM’s interdisciplinary culture, Derrick’s current research on race, educational equity, and the racial achievement gap lies at the intersection of philosophy, American history, and law.
    [Show full text]
  • Lawrence Sklar
    LAWRENCE SKLAR Born: June 25, 1938 in Baltimore, MD Married to: Elizabeth S. Sklar; one child Education Oberlin College, B.A., 1958 Princeton University, M.A., 1960; Ph.D., 1964 Fellowships, Awards and National Offices Held Undergraduate Ford Foundation Early Admission Scholarship Honors List (all years) Phi Beta Kappa (elected in junior year) Sigma Xi (associate member) Graduate Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, 1959-60 Chancellor Green Fellowship, 1960-61 Charlotte Elizabeth Proctor Advanced Fellowship (awarded to top ten students in third year graduate class), 1961-62 National Science Foundation Cooperative Fellowship, 1962-63 Post-Graduate American Council of Learned Societies Study Fellowship (held at Oxford University), 1965-66 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1974-75 Franklin J. Matchette Prize. Awarded by the American Philosophical Association to Space, Time, and Spacetime as outstanding philosophical book of 1973 and 1974 National Science Foundation Research Grants, 1977-78, 1979-80, 1982, 1984-85, 1986-87, 1988-89, 1998-2001, 2002-03 Rackham Foundation Summer Research Fellowship, 1983, 1994 2 Nelson Fellow, Philosophy Department, University of Michigan, l991-l994, 1995- James B. and Grace J. Nelson Professorship, Philosophy Department, University of Michigan, 1994-95 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1995-96 Faculty Recognition Award, University of Michigan, 1995-98 William K. Frankena Collegiate Professorship, University of Michigan, 1995-2002 Lakatos Award. Awarded to Physics and Chance as outstanding book in the philosophy of science for 1995. Physics and Chance selected by Choice Magazine as Outstanding Academic Book in philosophy of science for 1995 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences John Locke Lectureship in Philosophy, 1998, Oxford University Visiting Fellowship, All Souls College, Oxford University, 1998 Michigan Humanities Award, 1998-99.
    [Show full text]
  • Why Interpret Quantum Physics?
    Open Journal of Philosophy, 2016, 6, 86-102 Published Online February 2016 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojpp http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2016.61009 Why Interpret Quantum Physics? Edward MacKinnon Philosophy Department (Emeritus), California State University East Bay, Hayward, CA, USA Received 22 December 2015; accepted 19 February 2016; published 22 February 2016 Copyright © 2016 by author and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract This article probes the question of what interpretations of quantum mechanics actually accom- plish. In other domains, which are briefly considered, interpretations serve to make alien syste- matizations intelligible to us. This often involves clarifying the status of their implicit ontology. A survey of interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics supports the evaluation that these interpretations make a contribution to philosophy, but not to physics. Interpretations of quantum field theory are polarized by the divergence between the Lagrangian field theory, which leads to the Standard Model of Particle physics and the Algebraic quantum field theory that dis- counts an ontology of particles. Ruetsche’s interpretation offers a potential for loosening the sharp polarization that presently obtains. A brief evaluation focuses on the functional ontology of quan- tum field theory considered as an effective theory. Keywords Interpretation, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory, Ontology 1. Introduction Interpreting quantum mechanics has flourished as a cottage industry among philosophers of science and some philosophically inclined physicists. Physicists regularly ignore, and sometimes ridicule, such attempts. This gap between interpretation and practice raises reflective questions.
    [Show full text]
  • Determinism and General Relativity
    Determinism and General Relativity Chris Smeenk and Christian W¨uthrich∗ 16 September 2020 Abstract We investigate the fate of determinism in general relativity (GR), comparing the philosopher's account with the physicist's well-posed initial value formulations. The fate of determinism is interwoven with the question of what it is for a spacetime to be `physically reasonable'. A central concern is the status of global hyperbolicity, a putatively necessary condition for determinism in GR. While global hyperbolicity may fail to be true of all physically reasonable models, we analyze whether global hyperbolicity should be (i) imposed by fiat; (ii) established from weaker assumptions, as in cosmic censorship theorems; or (iii) justified by beyond-GR physics. 1 Introduction Two foundational questions one might ask about any physical theory bring out particularly subtle and interesting features of general relativity (GR). First, is GR a deterministic theory? Second, do all mathematical models of the theory represent physically possible spacetimes? There is a tight connection in GR between these two questions, i.e., between an assessment of what spacetimes are physically possible or reasonable and of whether determinism holds. It is this connection that we explore in this essay. Determinism holds if specifying the state of a system uniquely fixes its dynamical evolution. Spacetimes with exotic causal structure raise a distinctive set of questions regarding the status of determinism in GR, differing from those raised by the (in)famous hole argument. Below we will bypass the hole argument by assuming that the existence of a unique solution `up to diffeomor- phism invariance' is sufficient for determinism in GR.
    [Show full text]
  • Mathematical Structure and Empirical Content Michael E. Miller†
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Philsci-Archive Mathematical Structure and Empirical Content Michael E. Millery Approaches to the interpretation of physical theories provide accounts of how physical meaning accrues to the mathematical structure of a theory. According to many standard approaches to interpretation, meaning relations are captured by maps from the mathemat- ical structure of the theory to statements expressing its empirical content. In this paper I argue that while such accounts adequately address meaning relations when exact models are available or perturbation theory converges, they do not fare as well for models that give rise to divergent perturbative expansions. Since truncations of divergent perturbative expansions often play a critical role in establishing the empirical adequacy of a theory, this is a serious deficiency. I show how to augment state-space semantics, a view developed by Beth and van Fraassen, to capture perturbatively evaluated observables even in cases where perturbation theory is divergent. This new semantics establishes a sense in which the calculations that underwrite the empirical adequacy of a theory are both meaningful and true, but requires departure from the assumption that physical meaning is captured entirely by the exact models of a theory. 1. Introduction. Accounts of the interpretation of physical theories have developed in conjunction with, and in several important cases are attendant to, accounts of the structure of scientific theories. In other cases novel com- mitments about interpretation are tacitly adopted in the work of those in- terpreting particular physical theories. While there are significant differences between the accounts, many share a common set of commitments.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy of Science and to Transform These Spotlights in Time Inspire Our Future Success and Development
    Table of Contents Overview of the First 40 Years ... 00 • • 00 •••• 00 •• 00 •• 00 00. 2 Annual Lecture Series, 1960-2002 ..................... 6 Visiting Fellows and Scholars Program ........... 14 Lunchtime Colloquium .................................... 17 Conferences and Workshops .. ... .... ................... 18 Public Lecture Series ........................................ 26 Advisory Board .......... .. .... .. .. ............... :... ........ 00 26 Resident Fellows and Associates .. ............... .. ... 27 Center Publications ... ............... .. .. .. .... ... ... ........ 2 8 Archives of Scientific Philosophy in the 20th Century .............................. ............ 30 Major Funding Sources ... ................................. 31 CENTER CHRONOLOGY • In 2001-2002, the Center for Philosophy of Scie nce celebrates 40 years of in· 9/1/60 Acaaemic Vice CHancellor Ctiarles• H. Peak:e appoints Aaolf Grun- novation and accomplishment. The timeline included here highlights many baum as Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy with a twin mandate to of the Center's remarkable achievements and most memorable moments. establish a first-class center for philosophy of science and to transform These spotlights in time inspire our future success and development. the Department of Philosof:!hy into a leading department in the country. Andrew Mellon chair in philosophy to an unusually promis­ rated sixd1 in one category and eighth d1e main foci of Griinbaum's administra­ ing young scholar, someone so young that the age d1reshold in a second. In a confidential report tion. He relinquished his adnlinistrative of forty years for the Mellon Professorships had to be waived prepared in August 1965 for the Pitt appointment as Center Director in 1978 in order to secure Griinbaum for the chair. Perhaps no ap­ University Study Committee, Philosophy when he became its first chairman, a posi­ pointment at any university has returned greater dividends was among three departments identi- tion he continues to hold.
    [Show full text]
  • Indeterminism Is a Modal Notion: Branching Spacetimes and Earman’S Pruning
    Indeterminism is a modal notion: branching spacetimes and Earman’s pruning Tomasz Placek and Nuel Belnap Contents 1 Three types of branching 4 1.1 Ensemble and individual branching defined . 5 1.2 BST branching . 6 2 BT/BST branching 8 2.1 BST: Our World and its point events . 8 2.2 BST: histories . 9 2.3 BST: axioms . 10 2.4 BST: space-like relatedness . 10 2.5 BST: modal thickness and thinness . 10 2.6 BST: applications . 11 2.7 Spatiotemporal locations . 12 3 Physically-motivated BST models 13 3.1 Minkowskian Branching Structures . 13 3.2 Defining MBS’s . 18 3.3 Takingstock............................ 22 3.4 Historical remarks . 23 4 Further replies to Earman 24 4.1 BST: Hausdorffproperty..................... 24 4.2 The thin red line . 31 4.3 Semantic rule (R)......................... 33 4.4 Past/future asymmetry . 35 5 Indeterminism 37 1 6 Final 40 2 Abstract The paper defends an Aristotelian notion of indeterminism, as rig- orously formulated in the framework of branching space-times (BST) of Belnap (1992), against criticism by Earman (2008) based on a model-theoretic characterization of indeterminism. It delineates BST branching against the background provided by Earman’s (2008) dis- tinction between individual vs. ensemble branching. Partly in order to motivate our responses to Earman, it describes a construction of physically-motivated BST models, in which histories are isomorphic to Minkowski spacetime. Finally it responds to Earman’s criticisms leveled against BST by addressing a topological issue, the question of an actual future, the past/future asymmetry, and some semantical questions.
    [Show full text]