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  1. Physicalism Without the Idols of Mathematics.László E. Szabó - 2023 - Foundations of Science:1-20.
    I will argue that the ontological doctrine of physicalism inevitably entails the denial that there is anything conceptual in logic and mathematics. The elements of a formal system, even if they are tagged by suggestive names, are merely meaningless parts of a physically existing machinery, which have nothing to do with concepts, because they have nothing to do with the actual things. The only situation in which they can become meaning-carriers is when they are involved in a physical theory. But (...)
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  • On the Very Idea of Distant Correlations.Márton Gömöri - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (6):530-554.
    Contemporary debate over laws of nature centers around Humean supervenience, the thesis that everything supervenes on the distribution of non-nomic facts. The key ingredient of this thesis is the idea that nomic-like concepts—law, chance, causation, etc.—are expressible in terms of the regularities of non-nomic facts. Inherent to this idea is the tacit conviction that regularities, “constant conjunctions” of non-nomic facts do supervene on the distribution of non-nomic facts. This paper raises a challenge for this conviction. It will be pointed out (...)
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  • The ‘Miracle’ of Applicability? The Curious Case of the Simple Harmonic Oscillator.Sorin Bangu & Robert H. C. Moir - 2018 - Foundations of Physics 48 (5):507-525.
    The paper discusses to what extent the conceptual issues involved in solving the simple harmonic oscillator model fit Wigner’s famous point that the applicability of mathematics borders on the miraculous. We argue that although there is ultimately nothing mysterious here, as is to be expected, a careful demonstration that this is so involves unexpected difficulties. Consequently, through the lens of this simple case we derive some insight into what is responsible for the appearance of mystery in more sophisticated examples of (...)
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  • (1 other version)Intrinsic, Extrinsic, and the Constitutive A Priori.László E. Szabó - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (6):555-567.
    On the basis of what I call physico-formalist philosophy of mathematics, I will develop an amended account of the Kantian–Reichenbachian conception of constitutive a priori. It will be shown that the features attributed to a real object are not possessed by the object as a “thing-in-itself”; they require a physical theory by means of which these features are constituted. It will be seen that the existence of such a physical theory implies that a physical object can possess a property only (...)
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