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  1. Another philosophical look at twistor theory.Gregor Gajic, Nikesh Lilani & James Read - 2025 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 15 (1):1-35.
    Despite its being one of Roger Penrose’s greatest contributions to spacetime physics, there is a dearth of philosophical literature on twistor theory. The one exception to this is Bain (2006)—but although excellent, there remains much to be said on the foundations and philosophy of twistor theory. In this article, we (a) present for philosophers an introduction to twistor theory, (b) consider how the spacetime–twistor correspondence interacts with the philosophical literature on theoretical equivalence, and (c) explore the bearing which twistor theory (...)
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  • Are geometrical trinity of gravity underdetermined?Yitong Zhou - manuscript
    General relativity (GR) describes gravity through the curvature of spacetime. However, there are two equivalents of GR that describe flat spacetimes with gravitational effects attributed to torison or non-metricity. These theories, together with GR, are known as the geometrical trinity of gravity and are said to present a case of underdetermination by Wolf et al. (2024). In this article, I argue against this stance by examining the empirical equivalence and possible interpretations of the trinity. I propose a unifying framework where (...)
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  • Metaphysics of Quantum Gravity.Baptiste Le Bihan & Annica Vieser - 2024 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Metaphysics of Quantum Gravity The metaphysics of quantum gravity explores metaphysical issues related to research programs in theoretical physics clustered under the term quantum gravity. These research programs aim at the formulation of a theory that reconciles the theory of general relativity with quantum theory. The goal is not necessarily to come up with a … Continue reading Metaphysics of Quantum Gravity →.
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  • Metaphysics and Convention in Dimensional Analysis, 1914-1917.Mahmoud Jalloh - 2024 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 14 (2):275-322.
    This paper recovers an important, century-old debate regarding the methodological and metaphysical foundations of dimensional analysis. Consideration of Richard Tolman's failed attempt to install the principle of similitude---the relativity of size---as the founding principle of dimensional analysis both clarifies the method of dimensional analysis and articulates two metaphysical positions regarding quantity dimensions. Tolman's position is quantity dimension fundamentalism. This is a commitment to dimensional realism and a set of fundamental dimensions which ground all further dimensions. The opposing position, developed primarily (...)
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  • Mereological Models of Spacetime Emergence.Jessica Pohlmann - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (7):e13003.
    Recent work in quantum gravity has prompted a re-evaluation of the fundamental nature of spacetime. Spacetime is potentially emergent from non-spatiotemporal entities posited by a theory of quantum gravity. Recent efforts have sought to interpret the relationship between spacetime and the fundamental entities through a mereological framework. These frameworks propose that spacetime can be conceived as either having non-spatiotemporal entities as its constituents or being a constituent part of a non-spatiotemporal structure. I present a roadmap for those interested in exploring (...)
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  • Spacetime functionalists should be inferentialists.Tushar Menon - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
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  • From Multilevel Explanation to Downward Causation.David Yates - 2024 - In Katie Robertson & Alastair Wilson (eds.), Levels of Explanation. Oxford University Press.
    The causal closure of the physical poses a familiar causal exclusion problem for the special sciences that stems from the idea that if closure is true, then fundamental physical properties do all the causal work involved in bringing about physical effects. In this paper I aim to show that the strongest causal closure principle that is not ruled out by some simple physics in fact allows for a certain kind of downward causation, which in turn makes room for robust special (...)
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  • How to Teach General Relativity.Guy Hetzroni & James Read - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    Supposing that one is already familiar with special relativistic physics, what constitutes the best route via which to arrive at the architecture of the general theory of relativity? Although the later Einstein would stress the significance of mathematical and theoretical principles in answering this question, in this article we follow the lead of the earlier Einstein (circa 1916) and stress instead how one can go a long way to arriving at the general theory via inductive and empirical principles, without invoking (...)
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  • Reversing the arrow of time.Bryan W. Roberts - 2022 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    'The arrow of time' refers to the curious asymmetry that distinguishes the future from the past. Reversing the Arrow of Time argues that there is an intimate link between the symmetries of 'time itself' and time reversal symmetry in physical theories, which has wide-ranging implications for both physics and its philosophy. This link helps to clarify how we can learn about the symmetries of our world, how to understand the relationship between symmetries and what is real, and how to overcome (...)
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  • The Lorentz Transformation in a Fishbowl: A Comment on Cheng and Read’s “Why Not a Sound Postulate?”.Daniel Shanahan - 2023 - Foundations of Physics 53 (3):1-22.
    In support of their contention that it is the absence of a subsisting medium that imbues the speed of light with fundamentality, Bryan Cheng and James Read discuss certain “fishbowl universes” in which physical influences evolve, not at the speed of light, but that of sound. The Lorentz transformation simulated in these sonic universes, which the authors cite from the literature of analogue gravity, is not that of Einstein, for whom an aether was “superfluous”, but that of the earlier relativity (...)
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  • The gauge argument: A Noether Reason.Henrique Gomes, Bryan W. Roberts & Jeremy Butterfield - 2022 - In James Read & Nicholas J. Teh (eds.), The physics and philosophy of Noether's theorems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 354-377.
    Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? In this paper we discuss the sense in which gauge symmetry can be fruitfully applied to constrain the space of possible dynamical models in such a way that forces and charges are appropriately coupled. We review the most well-known application of this kind, known as the 'gauge argument' or 'gauge principle', discuss its difficulties, and then reconstruct the gauge argument (...)
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  • Euclidean spacetime functionalism.James Read & Bryan Cheng - 2022 - Synthese 200 (6):1-22.
    We explore the significance of physical theories set in Euclidean spacetimes. In particular, we explore the use of these theories in contemporary physics at large, and the sense in which there can be a notion of temporal evolution in these theories. Having achieved these tasks, we proceed to reflect on the lessons that one can take from such theories for Knox’s ‘inertial frame’ version of spacetime functionalism, which seems to issue incorrect verdicts in the case of theories with Euclidean metrical (...)
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  • Functionalising the wavefunction.Lorenzo Lorenzetti - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 96 (C):141-153.
    Functionalism is the view that being x is to play the role of x. This paper defends a functionalist account of three-dimensional entities in the context of Wave Function Realism (WFR), that can explain in detail how we can recover three-dimensional entities out of the wavefunction. In particular, the essay advocates for a novel version of WFR in terms of a functional reductionist approach in the style of David Lewis. This account entails reduction of the upper entities to the bottom (...)
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  • Two Forms of Functional Reductionism in Physics.Lorenzo Lorenzetti - 2024 - Synthese 203 (2).
    Functional reductionism characterises inter-theoretic reduction as the recovery of the upper-level behaviour described by the reduced theory in terms of the lower-level reducing theory. For instance, finding a statistical mechanical realiser that plays the functional role of thermodynamic entropy allows for establishing a reductive link between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. This view constitutes a unique approach to reduction that enjoys a number of positive features, but has received limited attention in the philosophy of science. -/- This paper aims to clarify (...)
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  • How to be Humean about symmetries.Toby Friend - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    I describe three extant attempts to identify the global external symmetries within a Humean framework with theorems of some or other deductive systematization of the world, respectively, the best system, a meta-best system and a maximally simple system. Each has merits, but also serious flaws. Instead, I propose a view of global external symmetries as consequences of the structure of Humean-consistent world-making relations.
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  • (1 other version)Spacetime Quietism in Quantum Gravity.Sam Baron & Baptiste Le Bihan - 2022 - In Antonio Vassallo (ed.), The Foundations of Spacetime Physics: Philosophical Perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 155-175.
    The existence and fundamentality of spacetime has been questioned in quantum gravity where spacetime is frequently described as emerging from a more fundamental non-spatiotemporal ontology. This is supposed to lead to various philosophical issues such as the problem of empirical coherence. Yet those issues assume beforehand that we actually understand and agree on the nature of spacetime. Reviewing popular conceptions of spacetime, we find that there is substantial disagreement on this matter, and little hope of resolving it. However, we argue (...)
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  • The physics and the philosophy of time reversal in standard quantum mechanics.Cristian López - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5-6):14267-14292.
    A widespread view in physics holds that the implementation of time reversal in standard quantum mechanics must be given by an anti-unitary operator. In foundations and philosophy of physics, however, there has been some discussion about the conceptual grounds of this orthodoxy, largely relying on either its obviousness or its mathematical-physical virtues. My aim in this paper is to substantively change the traditional structure of the debate by highlighting the philosophical commitments underlying the orthodoxy. I argue that the persuasive force (...)
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  • How to Be a Spacetime Substantivalist.Trevor Teitel - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (5):233-278.
    The consensus among spacetime substantivalists is to respond to Leibniz's classic shift arguments, and their contemporary incarnation in the form of the hole argument, by pruning the allegedly problematic metaphysical possibilities that generate these arguments. Some substantivalists do so by directly appealing to a modal doctrine akin to anti-haecceitism. Other substantivalists do so by appealing to an underlying hyperintensional doctrine that implies some such modal doctrine. My first aim in this paper is to pose a challenge for all extant forms (...)
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  • (1 other version)The limitations of intertial frame spacetime functionalism.Tushar Menon & James Read - 2019 - Synthese 1 (Suppl 2):229-251.
    For Knox, ‘spacetime’ is to be defined functionally, as that which picks out a structure of local inertial frames. Assuming that Knox is motivated to construct this functional definition of spacetime on the grounds that it appears to identify that structure which plays the operational role of spacetime—i.e., that structure which is actually surveyed by physical rods and clocks built from matter fields—we identify in this paper important limitations of her approach: these limitations are based upon the fact that there (...)
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  • Two dogmas of dynamicism.James Owen Weatherall - 2020 - Synthese 199 (S2):253-275.
    I critically discuss two dogmas of the “dynamical approach” to spacetime in general relativity, as advanced by Harvey Brown [Physical Relativity Oxford:Oxford University Press] and collaborators. The first dogma is that positing a “spacetime geometry” has no implications for the behavior of matter. The second dogma is that postulating the “Strong Equivalence Principle” suffices to ensure that matter is “adapted” to spacetime geometry. I conclude by discussing “spacetime functionalism”. The discussion is presented in reaction to and sympathy with recent work (...)
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  • The dynamical approach to spin-2 gravity.Kian Salimkhani - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 72:29-45.
    This paper engages with the following closely related questions that have recently received some attention in the literature: what is the status of the equivalence principle in general relativity?; how does the metric field obtain its property of being able to act as a metric?; and is the metric of GR derivative on the dynamics of the matter fields? The paper attempts to complement these debates by studying the spin-2 approach to gravity. In particular, the paper argues that three lessons (...)
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  • Probabilism for stochastic theories.Jer Steeger - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 66:34–44.
    I defend an analog of probabilism that characterizes rationally coherent estimates for chances. Specifically, I demonstrate the following accuracy-dominance result for stochastic theories in the C*-algebraic framework: supposing an assignment of chance values is possible if and only if it is given by a pure state on a given algebra, your estimates for chances avoid accuracy-dominance if and only if they are given by a state on that algebra. When your estimates avoid accuracy-dominance (roughly: when you cannot guarantee that other (...)
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  • Spacetime Emergence in Quantum Gravity: Functionalism and the Hard Problem.Baptiste Le Bihan - 2019 - Synthese 199 (2):371–393.
    Spacetime functionalism is the view that spacetime is a functional structure implemented by a more fundamental ontology. Lam and Wüthrich have recently argued that spacetime functionalism helps to solve the epistemological problem of empirical coherence in quantum gravity and suggested that it also (dis)solves the hard problem of spacetime, namely the problem of offering a picture consistent with the emergence of spacetime from a non-spatio-temporal structure. First, I will deny that spacetime functionalism solves the hard problem by showing that it (...)
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  • Thinking about Spacetime.David Yates - 2021 - In Christian Wüthrich, Baptiste Le Bihan & Nick Huggett (eds.), Philosophy Beyond Spacetime: Implications From Quantum Gravity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Several different quantum gravity research programmes suggest, for various reasons, that spacetime is not part of the fundamental ontology of physics. This gives rise to the problem of empirical coherence: if fundamental physical entities do not occupy spacetime or instantiate spatiotemporal properties, how can fundamental theories concerning those entities be justified by observation of spatiotemporally located things like meters, pointers and dials? I frame the problem of empirical coherence in terms of entailment: how could a non-spatiotemporal fundamental theory entail spatiotemporal (...)
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  • The metaphysics of emergent spacetime theories.Niels C. M. Martens - 2019 - Philosophy Compass 14 (7):e12596.
    The debate concerning the ontological status of spacetime is standardly construed as a dilemma between substantivalism and relationalism. I argue that a trilemma is more appropriate, emergent spacetime theories being the third category. Traditional philosophical arguments do not distinguish between emergent spacetime and substantivalism. It is arguments from physics that suggest giving up substantivalism in favour of emergent spacetime theories. The remaining new dilemma is between emergent spacetime and relationalism. I provide a list of questions, which one should consider when (...)
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  • Temporal Fictionalism for a Timeless World.Sam Baron, Kristie Miller & Jonathan Tallant - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2):281-301.
    Current debate in the metaphysics of time ordinarily assumes that we should be realists about time. Recently, however, a number of physicists and philosophers of physics have proposed that time will play no role in a completed theory of quantum gravity. This paper defends fictionalism about temporal thought, on the supposition that our world is timeless. We argue that, in the face of timeless physical theories, realism about temporal thought is unsustainable: some kind of anti-realism must be adopted. We go (...)
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  • The Mass of the Gravitational Field.Charles T. Sebens - 2022 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (1):211-248.
    By mass-energy equivalence, the gravitational field has a relativistic mass density proportional to its energy density. I seek to better understand this mass of the gravitational field by asking whether it plays three traditional roles of mass: the role in conservation of mass, the inertial role, and the role as source for gravitation. The difficult case of general relativity is compared to the more straightforward cases of Newtonian gravity and electromagnetism by way of gravitoelectromagnetism, an intermediate theory of gravity that (...)
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  • On Spacetime Functionalism.David John Baker - manuscript
    Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws (the role of determining local inertial structure). I raise two complications for this approach. First, our spacetime concept seems to have the structure of a cluster concept, which means that Knox's inertial criteria for spacetime cannot succeed with complete generality. Second, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the spacetime concept, in which case spacetime functionalism may be uninformative (...)
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  • Conservation, inertia, and spacetime geometry.James Owen Weatherall - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 67:144-159.
    As Harvey Brown emphasizes in his book Physical Relativity, inertial motion in general relativity is best understood as a theorem, and not a postulate. Here I discuss the status of the "conservation condition", which states that the energy-momentum tensor associated with non-interacting matter is covariantly divergence-free, in connection with such theorems. I argue that the conservation condition is best understood as a consequence of the differential equations governing the evolution of matter in general relativity and many other theories. I conclude (...)
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  • Defending the quantum reconstruction program.Philipp Berghofer - 2024 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 14 (3):1-32.
    The program of reconstructing quantum theory based on information-theoretic principles enjoys much popularity in the foundations of physics. Surprisingly, this endeavor has only received very little attention in philosophy. Here I argue that this should change. This is because, on the one hand, reconstructions can help us to better understand quantum mechanics, and, on the other hand, reconstructions are themselves in need of interpretation. My overall objective, thus, is to motivate the reconstruction program and to show why philosophers should care. (...)
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  • The many problems of spacetime emergence in quantum gravity.Rasmus Jaksland & Kian Salimkhani - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    In this paper, we argue that what is often discussed under the umbrella of `spacetime emergence' in the philosophy of quantum gravity in fact consists of a plethora of distinct and even highly different problems. We therefore advocate to cast such debates more specifically in terms of the emergent spatiotemporal aspects, as is already done in the physics literature. We first show how ambiguous the notion of spacetime is already in general relativity. We then argue against three ways to reject (...)
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  • Empirical incoherence and double functionalism.Sam Baron - 2019 - Synthese 199 (S2):413-439.
    Recent work on quantum gravity suggests that neither spacetime nor spatiotemporally located entites exist at a fundamental level. The loss of both brings with it the threat of empirical incoherence. A theory is empirically incoherent when the truth of that theory undermines the empirical justification for believing it. If neither spacetime nor spatiotemporally located entities exist as a part of a fundamental theory of QG, then such a theory seems to imply that there are no observables and so no way (...)
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  • (1 other version)Spacetime: function and approximation.Sam Baron - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2).
    Several approaches to quantum gravity signal the loss of spacetime at some level. According to spacetime functionalism, spacetime is functionally realised by a more fundamental structure. According to one version of spacetime functionalism, the spacetime role is specified by Ramsifying general relativity. In some approaches to QG, however, there does not appear to be anything that exactly realises the functional role defined by a Ramsey sentence for GR. The spacetime role is approximately realised. It is open to the spacetime functionalist (...)
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  • Why Not a Sound Postulate?Bryan Cheng & James Read - 2021 - Foundations of Physics 51 (3):1-20.
    What, if anything, would be wrong with replacing the light postulate in Einstein’s 1905 formulation of special relativity with a ‘sound postulate’, stating that the speed of sound is independent of the speed of the source? After reviewing the historical reasons underlying the particular focus on light in the special theory, we consider the circumstances under which such a theory of ‘sonic relativity’ would be justified on empirical grounds. We then consider the philosophical upshots of ‘sonic relativity’ for four contemporary (...)
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  • Humeanism in light of quantum gravity.Enrico Cinti & Marco Sanchioni - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):10839-10863.
    Quantum Theory and Humeanism have long been thought to be incompatible due to the irreducibility of the correlations involved in entangled states. In this paper, we reconstruct the tension between Humeanism and entanglement via the concept of causal structure, and provide a philosophical introduction to the ER=EPR conjecture. With these tools, we then show how the concept of causal structure and the ER=EPR conjecture allow us to resolve the conflict between Humeanism and entanglement.
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  • Perceptual illusionism.Brian Cutter - 2021 - Analytic Philosophy 62 (4):396-417.
    Perceptual illusionism is the view that perceptual experience is, in general, radically illusory. That is, perceptual experience presents objects as having certain sensible properties and standing in certain sensible relations, but nothing in the subject’s environment has those properties or stands in those relations. This paper makes the case for perceptual illusionism by showing how a broad set of philosophical and scientific considerations converge to support illusionism about the full range of sensible properties and relations. After clarifying the illusionist thesis, (...)
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  • Composing Spacetime.Sam Baron & Baptiste Le Bihan - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (1):33-54.
    According to a number of approaches in theoretical physics, spacetime does not exist fundamentally. Rather, spacetime exists by depending on another, more fundamental, non-spatiotemporal structure. A prevalent opinion in the literature is that this dependence should not be analyzed in terms of composition. We should not say, that is, that spacetime depends on an ontology of non-spatiotemporal entities in virtue of having them as parts. But is that really right? On the contrary, we argue that a mereological approach to dependent (...)
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  • Isolation, not locality.Heather Demarest & Michael Townsen Hicks - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (3):607-619.
    There is a long tradition of preferring local theories to ones that posit lawful or causal influence at a spacetime distance. In this paper, we argue against this preference. We argue that nonlocality is scientifically unobjectionable and that nonlocal theories can be known. Scientists can gather evidence for them and confirm them in much the same way that they do for local theories. We think these observations point to a deeper constraint on scientific theorizing and experimentation: the (quasi‐) isolation of (...)
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  • Spatiotemporal functionalism v. the conceivability of zombies.David J. Chalmers - 2020 - Noûs 54 (2):488-497.
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  • The curious case of spacetime emergence.Sam Baron - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 177 (8):2207-2226.
    Work in quantum gravity suggests that spacetime is not fundamental. Rather, spacetime emerges from an underlying, non-spatiotemporal reality. After clarifying the type of emergence at issue, I argue that standard conceptions of emergence available in metaphysics won’t work for the emergence of spacetime. I go on to consider spacetime functionalism as a way to make sense of spacetime emergence. I argue that a functionalist approach to spacetime modelled on mental state functionalism is not a viable alternative to the standard conception (...)
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  • Fundamentality in metaphysics and the philosophy of physics. Part II: The philosophy of physics.Matteo Morganti - 2020 - Philosophy Compass 15 (10):e12703.
    This is the second part of an overview article on fundamentality in metaphysics and the philosophy of physics. Here, the notion of fundamentality is looked at from the viewpoint of the philosophical analysis of physics and physical theories. The questions are considered (1) whether physics can be regarded as fundamental with respect to other sciences, and in what sense; (2) what the label ‘fundamental physics’ should exactly be taken to mean; (3) on what grounds a particular physical theory should be (...)
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  • Getting tense about relativity.James Read & Emily Qureshi-Hurst - 2020 - Synthese 198 (9):8103-8125.
    Special relativity has been understood by many as vindicating a tenseless conception of time, denying the existence of tensed facts and a fortiori objective temporal passage. The reason for this is straightforward: both passage and the obtaining of tensed facts require a universal knife-edge present moment—yet this structure is not easily reconcilable with the relativity of simultaneity. The above being said, the prospects for tense and passage are sometimes claimed to be improved on moving to cosmological solutions of general relativity. (...)
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  • Spatial experience, spatial reality, and two paths to primitivism.Bradford Saad - 2019 - Synthese 199 (2):469-491.
    I explore two views about the relationship between spatial experience and spatial reality: spatial functionalism and spatial presentationalism. Roughly, spatial functionalism claims that the instantiated spatial properties are those playing a certain causal role in producing spatial experience while spatial presentationalism claims that the instantiated spatial properties include those presented in spatial experience. I argue that each view, in its own way, leads to an ontologically inflationary form of primitivism: whereas spatial functionalism leads to primitivism about phenomenal representation, spatial presentationalism (...)
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  • General-Relativistic Covariance.Neil Dewar - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (4):294-318.
    This is an essay about general covariance, and what it says about spacetime structure. After outlining a version of the dynamical approach to spacetime theories, and how it struggles to deal with generally covariant theories, I argue that we should think about the symmetry structure of spacetime rather differently in generally-covariant theories compared to non-generally-covariant theories: namely, as a form of internal rather than external symmetry structure.
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  • Explanation, geometry, and conspiracy in relativity theory.James Read - unknown
    I discuss the debate between dynamical versus geometrical approaches to spacetime theories, in the context of both special and general relativity, arguing that the debate takes a substantially different form in the two cases; different versions of the geometrical approach—only some of which are viable—should be distinguished; in general relativity, there is no difference between the most viable version of the geometrical approach and the dynamical approach. In addition, I demonstrate that what have previously been dubbed two ‘miracles’ of general (...)
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  • Spacetime in String Theory: A Conceptual Clarification.Keizo Matsubara & Lars-Göran Johansson - 2018 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 49 (3):333-353.
    In this paper, some conceptual issues are addressed in order to make sense of what string theory is supposed to tell us about spacetime. The dualities in string theory are used as a starting point for our argumentation. We explore the consequences of a standard view towards these dualities, namely that the dual descriptions represent the same physical situation. Given this view, one has to understand string theory in a manner such that what counts as physical spacetime is based only (...)
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  • The Dynamical Approach to Spacetime Theories.Harvey R. Brown & James Read - 2022 - In Eleanor Knox & Alastair Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics. London, UK: Routledge.
    We review the dynamical approach to spacetime theories---in particular, its origins in the development of special relativity, its opposition to the contemporary `geometrical' approach, and the manner in which it plays out in general relativity. In addition, we demonstrate that the approach is compatible with the `angle bracket school'.
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  • Spacetime is as spacetime does.Vincent Lam & Christian Wüthrich - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 64:39-51.
    Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must establish how relativistic spacetime emerges from their non-spatiotemporal structures. We argue that in order to secure this emergence, it is sufficient to establish that only those features of relativistic spacetimes functionally relevant in producing empirical evidence must be recovered. In order to complete this task, an account must be given of (...)
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  • Spacetime functionalism from a realist perspective.Vincent Lam & Christian Wüthrich - 2020 - Synthese 199 (S2):335-353.
    In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum gravity. We argue in this article that spacetime functionalism in quantum gravity is radically different from other functionalist approaches that have been suggested in quantum mechanics and general relativity: in contrast to these latter cases, it does not compete with purely interpretative alternatives, but is rather intertwined with the physical theorizing itself at (...)
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  • On the empirical coherence and the spatiotemporal gap problem in quantum gravity: and why functionalism does not (have to) help.Niels Linnemann - 2020 - Synthese 199 (S2):395-412.
    The empirical coherence problem of quantum gravity is the worry that a theory which does not fundamentally contain local beables located in space and time—such as is arguably the case for certain approaches to quantum gravity—cannot be connected to measurements and thus has its prospects of being empirically adequate undermined. Spacetime functionalism à la Lam and Wüthrich is said to solve this empirical coherence problem as well as bridging a severe conceptual gap between spatiotemporal structures of classical spacetime theories on (...)
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