We compare two approaches given to the parallelogram law as a fundamental notion in eighteenth century mechanics. The authors we study are Kant and d’Alembert and we use the context created by Newton’s Principia as our point of departure.

I set out the factors which tempt people into reading Ernst Mach's book The Analysis of Sensations as putting forward either a version of phenomenalism or a version of neutral monism, and then assess the strengths and weaknesses of these two readings. I present an ‘internal’ view of that text, showing that it by no means mandates the phenomenalist reading, and that a case for something more like the neutral monist reading can be made from within that book, indeed largely (...) from within its famous first chapter. (shrink)

The paper compares dispositionalism about laws of nature with primitivism. It argues that while the distinction between these two positions can be drawn in a clear-cut manner in classical mechanics, it is less clear in quantum mechanics, due to quantum non-locality. Nonetheless, the paper points out advantages for dispositionalism in comparison to primitivism also in the area of quantum mechanics, and of contemporary physics in general.

This paper argues for an interpretation of Leibniz’s claim that physics requires both mechanical and teleological principles as a view regarding the interpretation of physical theories. Granting that Leibniz’s fundamental ontology remains non-physical, or mentalistic, it argues that teleological principles nevertheless ground a realist commitment about mechanical descriptions of phenomena. The empirical results of the new sciences, according to Leibniz, have genuine truth conditions: there is a fact of the matter about the regularities observed in experience. Taking this stance, however, (...) requires bringing non-empirical reasons to bear upon mechanical causal claims. This paper first evaluates extant interpretations of Leibniz’s thesis that there are two realms in physics as describing parallel, self-sufficient sets of laws. It then examines Leibniz’s use of teleological principles to interpret scientific results in the context of his interventions in debates in seventeenth-century kinematic theory, and in the teaching of Copernicanism. Leibniz’s use of the principle of continuity and the principle of simplicity, for instance, reveal an underlying commitment to the truth-aptness, or approximate truth-aptness, of the new natural sciences. The paper concludes with a brief remark on the relation between metaphysics, theology, and physics in Leibniz. (shrink)

This book defends a relational theory of the passage of time. The realist view of passage developed in this book differs from the robust, substantivalist position. According to relationism, passage is nothing over and above the succession of events, one thing coming after another. Causally related events are temporally arranged as they happen one after another along observers’ worldlines. There is no unique global passage but a multiplicity of local passages of time. After setting out this positive argument for relationism, (...) the author deals with five common objections to it: (a) triviality of deflationary passage, (b) a-directionality of passage, (c) the impossibility of experiencing passage, (d) fictionalism about passage, and (e) the incompatibility of passage with perduring objects. (shrink)

Los experimentos mentales son dispositivos epistémicos de la imaginación, o de análisis de problemas filosóficos, que recorren las fronteras de aquella, desde el sillón. Dichas fronteras tocan dilemas perennes de la filosofía: cuestiones de la metafísica, como el tiempo, el espacio y la realidad, el problema de la libertad y el determinismo, la naturaleza de la mente, la identidad personal, los argumentos acerca del significado, las posibilidades, fuentes y condiciones del conocimiento, las relaciones entre discurso y lógica, la ética, cuestiones (...) de la filosofía social y política, y la estética. Muchos problemas de la filosofía han sido abordados mediante experimentos mentales, una herramienta útil de la caja de herramientas del filósofo. No todas las herramientas son populares, no obstante. Los experimentos mentales son, pese a sus defensores, falibles, incluso si son argumentos bien planteados. Justamente, este libro recopila artículos con las principales defensas y ataques a los experimentos mentales, especialmente en términos de su confiabilidad para llegar a conclusiones, o bien de su relevancia en términos de su origen: el sillón de la filosofía. Este ha sido vapuleado por los nuevos aires de la filosofía analítica, que trata al sillón como un viejo artefacto del análisis a priori. De hecho, hay posturas que critican a los experimentos mentales por constituir bombas de intuiciones no confiables. Por supuesto, no hay razón irrefutable para aceptar los experimentos mentales y las filosofías de sillón. Pero ¿hay alguna en la filosofía? El libro no pretende convencer al lector del valor de los experimentos mentales y las filosofías de sillón. Por el contrario, su objetivo es formar una imagen propia de estos dispositivos epistémicos, tanto en relación con sus virtudes y limitaciones. Si ello se logra, habrá valido el esfuerzo llevado a cabo en esta compilación de artículos, los que muestran los límites, desafíos y críticas de la experimentación mental desde el sillón. (shrink)

The sciences may be conceptualized as a hierarchy ranked by level of organization (e.g., many‐body physics ranks above particle physics). Each science serves as an antidiscipline for the science above it; that is, between each pair, tense but creative interplay is inevitable. Biology has advanced through such tension between its subdisciplines and now can serve as an antidiscipline for the social sciences—for anthropology, for example, by examining the connection between cultural and biological evolution; for psychology, by addressing the nature of (...) learning and the structure of the unconscious; for economics, by examining economically irrational behavior and by comparing economic activity in humans and other species. Sociology, concerned mainly with advanced literate societies, is relatively remote from the genetic basis of human social behavior. However, moving between biological and social levels of organization generates richness and points to new and unexpected principles. (shrink)

It is in the scholium of thePrincipiaon time, space, place and motion that Newton delivers what is — arguably — a reluctant kiss of betrayal to empiricism. Right there, ‘in the main body of his chief work,’ as E.A. Burtt observes, the deed is done: ‘When we come to Newton's remarks on space and time … he takes personal leave of his empiricism.’ Reichenbach registers the event less charitably, dismissing the ‘crude reification of space that Newton shares with the epistemologically (...) unschooled mind in its naive craving for realism.’ Injury is then added to insult as Reichenbach holds Newtonian mechanics to task for arresting the analysis of the problems of space and time for more than two centuries. (shrink)

Using as a starting point recent and apparently incompatible conclusions by Saunders and Knox, I revisit the question of the correct spacetime setting for Newtonian physics. I argue that understood correctly, these two versions of Newtonian physics make the same claims both about the background geometry required to define the theory, and about the inertial structure of the theory. In doing so I illustrate and explore in detail the view—espoused by Knox, and also by Brown —that inertial structure is defined (...) by the dynamics governing subsystems of a larger system. This clarifies some interesting features of Newtonian physics, notably the distinction between using the theory to model subsystems of a larger whole and using it to model complete universes, and the scale-relativity of spacetime structure. _1_ Introduction _2_ Newtonian Mechanics and Galilean Spacetime _3_ Vector Relationism and Maxwellian Spacetime _4_ Recovering the Galilei Group: Dynamics of Subsystems _5_ Knox on Inertial Structure _6_ Connections on Maxwellian Spacetime _7_ Knox on Newtonian Gravity _8_ Vector Relationism and Newton–Cartan Theory _9_ Inertial Structure in Newton–Cartan Gravity _10_ Reconciling Knox and Saunders _11_ Conclusions. (shrink)

According to Ernst Cassirer, the transition from the concept of substance to that of mathematical function as a guide of knowledge coincided with the end of ancient and the beginning of modern theoretical thought. In the first part of this article we argue that a similar transition has also taken place in the practical sphere, where mathematical function occurs in one of its specific forms, which is that of the algorithm concept. In the second part we argue that with the (...) rise of modernity the idea of substance and the related concepts of category and classification, which are deeply embedded in western culture, have not been totally supplanted by that of function. The intertwining of the concepts of substance and function has generated contradictory hybrids. These hybrids are used as a key for the understanding of the different repercussions of algorithmic logic on society in terms of social integration. (shrink)

This article develops a model-based account of the standardization of physical measurement, taking the contemporary standardization of time as its central case study. To standardize the measurement of a quantity, I argue, is to legislate the mode of application of a quantity concept to a collection of exemplary artefacts. Legislation involves an iterative exchange between top-down adjustments to theoretical and statistical models regulating the application of a concept, and bottom-up adjustments to material artefacts in light of remaining gaps. The model-based (...) account clarifies the cognitive role of ad hoc corrections, arbitrary rules, and seemingly circular inferences involved in contemporary timekeeping, and explains the stability of networks of standards better than its conventionalist and constructivist counterparts. 1 Introduction2 Making Time Universal2.1 Stability and accuracy2.2 Multiple realizability2.3 The challenges of synchronicity2.4 Divergent standards2.5 The leap second3 The Two Faces of Stability3.1 An explanatory challenge3.2 Conventionalist explanations3.3 Constructivist explanations4 Models and Standardization4.1 A third alternative4.2 Stability reconceived4.3 Legislative freedom4.4 Discovering gaps4.5 Nature and society entangled4.6 Remark on scope5 Conclusions. (shrink)

This is the introduction to a special issue of HOPOS on the history of the philosophy of thought experiments.

Rationality of induction as entropic minimization: In favour of a fundamental aspect of the epistemology of Mariano Artigas –his commitment to the quest for truth on the part of the scientific theory– I argue about the rationality of the process of induction, both the induction of general laws from particular facts of experience and the inference of postulates from the experimental laws which form the empirical basis of the theory. This is argued by showing that we minimize the entropy of (...) the information when making an induction, so that we just do what usually the reason does. (shrink)

The examples and concepts that Shoemaker cites are rather heterogeneous. Some distinctions need to be drawn. An optimality thesis involves not just an ordering of options, but a value judgment about them. So let us begin by distinguishing minimality from optimality. And the concept of minimality can play a variety of roles, among which I distinguish between extremum descriptions, statements hypothesizing an optimizing process, and methodological recommendations. Finally, I consider how the three categories relate to Shoemaker’s question that “Who is (...) optimizing: the scientist or nature?” . (shrink)

While claiming that diagrams can only be admitted as a method of strict proof if the underlying axioms are precisely known and explicitly spelled out, Hilbert praised Minkowski’s Geometry of Numbers and his diagram-based reasoning as a specimen of an arithmetical theory operating “rigorously” with geometrical concepts and signs. In this connection, in the first phase of his foundational views on the axiomatic method, Hilbert also held that diagrams are to be thought of as “drawn formulas”, and formulas as “written (...) diagrams”, thus suggesting that the former encapsulate propositional information which can be extracted and translated into formulas. In the case of Minkowski diagrams, local geometrical axioms were actually being produced, starting with the diagrams, by a process that was both constrained and fostered by the requirement, brought about by the axiomatic method itself, that geometry ought to be made independent of analysis. This paper aims at making a twofold point. On the one hand, it shows that Minkowski’s diagrammatic methods in number theory prompted Hilbert’s axiomatic investigations into the notion of a straight line as the shortest distance between two points, which start from his earlier work focused on the role of the triangle inequality property in the foundations of geometry, and lead up to his formulation of the 1900 Fourth Problem. On the other hand, it purports to make clear how Hilbert’s assessment of Minkowski’s diagram-based reasoning in number theory both raises and illuminates conceptual compatibility concerns that were crucial to his philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

We study a long-recognised but under-appreciated symmetry called dynamical similarity and illustrate its relevance to many important conceptual problems in fundamental physics. Dynamical similarities are general transformations of a system where the unit of Hamilton’s principal function is rescaled, and therefore represent a kind of dynamical scaling symmetry with formal properties that differ from many standard symmetries. To study this symmetry, we develop a general framework for symmetries that distinguishes the observable and surplus structures of a theory by using the (...) minimal freely specifiable initial data for the theory that is necessary to achieve empirical adequacy. This framework is then applied to well-studied examples including Galilean invariance and the symmetries of the Kepler problem. We find that our framework gives a precise dynamical criterion for identifying the observables of those systems, and that those observables agree with epistemic expectations. We then apply our framework to dynamical similarity. First we give a general definition of dynamical similarity. Then we show, with the help of some previous results, how the dynamics of our observables leads to singularity resolution and the emergence of an arrow of time in cosmology. (shrink)

The history of mechanics has been extensively investigated in a number of historical works. The full story from the Greeks and medievals through the Scientific Revolution to the modern era is long and complex. But it is also incomplete. Studies to date have been admirably thorough in putting empirical discoveries into proper perspective and in making clear the great importance of mathematical innovations. But there has been surprisingly little regard for the role of thought experiments in the development of mechanics. (...) We attempt to rectify this, at least in part. After a brief account of Greek ideas of space and motion, we focus on late medieval and early modern physics, especially the development of inertial motion. In particular, we examine the thought experiments of Buridan, Oresme, and Galileo, which did so much to undermine Aristotle’s account of motion and lead the way to the modern concept of inertia. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper is a study of the role of language in scientific activity. It recommends that language be viewed as a community's means of patterning its affairs. Language represents where the boundaries of the community are and who is entitled to speak within it, and it displays the structures of authority in the community. Moreover, language precipitates the community's view of what the world is like, such that linguistic usages can be taken as referring to that world. Thus, language (...) connects on the one side to a community's practical life, and, on the other, to the reality on which it “reports.”The example treated is Robert Boyle's view of the language proper for experimental practice, and his arguments against the value and legitimacy of mathematical representations within the experimental community. Boyle argued that the use of mathematics was inappropriate because (i) it would restrict the number of potential participants; (ii) it would give rise to unwarranted expectations of the certainty and accuracy to be expected of real physical inquiries; (iii) it would suggest views of natural law and God's relations with the natural world which were incorrect and possibly dangerous; and because (iv) the world upon which the experimentalist operated was not such as was represented by mathematical idealizations. I try to establish that decision about the appropriate language for the experimental community was a moral choice. (shrink)

This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of one of science's most pervasive and flexible metaprinciples;optimalityis used to explain utility maximization in economics, least effort principles in physics, entropy in chemistry, and survival of the fittest in biology. Fermat's principle of least time involves both teleological and causal considerations, two distinct modes of explanation resting on poorly understood psychological primitives. The rationality heuristic in economics provides an example from social science of the potential biases arising from the extreme flexibility of (...) optimality considerations, including selective search for confirming vidence, ex post rationalization, and the confusion of prediction with explanation. Commentators are asked to reflect on the extent to which optimality is an organizing principle of nature, a set of relatively unconnected techniques of science, a normative principle for rational choice and social organization, a metaphysical way of looking at the world, or something else still. (shrink)

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 paper aims to cast light on the reasons that explain the shift of opinion—from scepticism to realism—concerning the reality of atoms and molecules in the beginning of the twentieth century, in light of Jean Perrin’s theoretical and experimental work on the Brownian movement. The story told has some rather interesting repercussions for the rationality of accepting the reality of explanatory posits. Section 2 presents the key philosophical debate concerning the role and status of explanatory hypotheses c. 1900, focusing on (...) the work of Duhem, Stallo, Ostwald, Poincaré and Boltzmann. Section 3 examines in detail Perrin’s theoretical account of the molecular origins of Brownian motion, reconstructs the structure and explains the strength of Perrin’s argument for the reality of molecules. Section 4 draws three important lessons for the current debate over scientific realism. (shrink)

The place of Heinrich Hertz’s The principles of mechanics in the history of the philosophy of science is disputed. Here I critically assess positivist interpretations, concluding that they are inadequate.There is a group of commentators who seek to align Hertz with positivism, or with specific positivists such as Ernst Mach, who were enormously influential at the time. Max Jammer is prominent among this group, the most recent member of which is Joseph Kockelmans. I begin by discussing what Hertz and Mach (...) had to say about one another, and I specify certain respects in which their views are indeed similar. I then go on to detail their differences, looking at Hertz’s attitude to the atomic theory, to the mechanical world-view, to simplicity, to unobservables and metaphysics, and his objections to Newtonian forces. I conclude that the positivist interpretation of Hertz’s mechanics significantly overplays its similarities to Mach’s views.Keywords: Ernst Mach; Heinrich Hertz; Mechanics; Positivism; Atomism; Force; Metaphysics. (shrink)

The basic kinds of physical causality that are foundational for other kinds of causality involve objects and the causal relations between them. These interactions do not involve events. If events were ontologically significant entities for causality in general, then they would play a role in simple mechanical interactions. But arguments about simple collisions looked at from different frames of reference show that events cannot play a role in simple mechanical interactions, and neither can the entirely hypothetical causal relations between events. (...) These arguments show that physics, which should be authoritative when it comes to the metaphysics of causality, gives no reasons to believe that events are causal agents. Force relations and some cases of energy-momentum transfer are examples of causal relations, with forces being paradigmatic in the macroscopic world, though it is conceivable that there are other kinds of causal relation. A relation between two objects is a causal relation if and only if when it is instantiated by the two objects there is a possibility that the objects that are the terms of the relation could change. The basic metaphysics of causality is about objects, causal relations, changes in objects, and a causal primitive. The paper also includes a discussion of the metaphysics of forces and a discussion of the metaphysics of energy and momentum exchanges. (shrink)

A comment on Paul Schoemaker's target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14 (1991), p. 205-215, "The Quest for Optimality: A Positive Heuristic of Science?" (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00066140). This comment argues that the optimizing model of decision leads to an infinite regress, once internal costs of decision (i.e., information and computation costs) are duly taken into account.

Leibniz speaks, in a variety of contexts, of there being two realms—a "kingdom of power or efficient causes" and "a kingdom of wisdom or final causes." This essay explores an often overlooked application of Leibniz's famous "two realms doctrine." The first part turns to Leibniz's work in optics for the roots of his view that nature can be seen as being governed by two complete sets of equipotent laws, with one set corresponding to the efficient causal order of the world, (...) and the other to its teleological order. The second part offers an account of how this picture of lawful over-determination is to be reconciled with Leibniz's mature metaphysics. The third addresses a line of objection proposed by David Hirschmann to the effect that Leibniz's doctrine undermines his stated commitment to an efficient, broadly mechanical account of the natural world. Finally, the fourth part suggests that Leibniz's thinking about the harmony of final and efficient causes in connection with corporeal nature may help to shed light on his understanding of the teleological unfolding of monads as well. (shrink)

Absolutism about mass claims that mass ratios obtain in virtue of absolute masses. Comparativism denies this. Dasgupta, Oxford studies in metaphysics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) argues for comparativism about mass, in the context of Newtonian Gravity. Such an argument requires proving that comparativism is empirically adequate. Dasgupta equates this to showing that absolute masses are undetectable, and attempts to do so. This paper develops an argument by Baker to the contrary: absolute masses are in fact empirically meaningful, that is (...) detectable. Additionally, it is argued that the requirement of empirical adequacy should not be cashed out in terms of undetectability in the first place. The paper closes by sketching the possible strategies that remain for the comparativist. Along the way a framework is developed that is useful for thinking about these issues: Ozma games—how could one explain to an alien civilisation what an absolute mass is? (shrink)

David Hull has demonstrated a marvelous ability to annoy everyone who caresabout science (or should), by forcing us to confront deep truths about howscience works. Credit, priority, precularities, and process weave together tomake the very fabric of science. As Hull's studies reveal, the story is bothmessier and more irritating than those limited by a single disciplinaryperspective generally admit. By itself history is interesting enough, andphilosophy valuable enough. But taken together, they do so much in tellingus about science and by puncturing (...) the comfortable popular illusion abouthow science works. Ultimately, David Hull shows by his example thathistory and philosophy of science can make science better. I agree, and withits focus on the history of science in particular, this paper explores why. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn spite of Koyré's conclusions, there are sufficient reasons to claim that Galileo, and with him the beginnings of classical mechanics in early modern times, was closely related to practical mechanics. It is, however, not completely clear how, and to what extent, practitioners and engineers could have had a part in shaping the modern sciences. By comparing the beginnings of modern dynamics with the beginnings of statics in Antiquity, and in particular with Archimedes — whose rediscovery in the sixteenth (...) century was of great consequence — I will focus on the question of which devices played a comparable role in dynamics to that of the lever and balance in statics. I will also examine where these devices came from. In this way, I will show that the entire world of mechanics of that time — “high” and “low,” practical and theoretical — was of significance for shaping classical mechanics and that a specific relationship between art and science was and is constitutive for modern sciences. (shrink)