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  1. On the Common Sense Argument for Monism.Tuomas E. Tahko & Donnchadh O'Conaill - 2011 - In Philip Goff (ed.), Spinoza on Monism. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 149-166.
    The priority monist holds that the cosmos is the only fundamental object, of which every other concrete object is a dependent part. One major argument against monism goes back to Russell, who claimed that pluralism is favoured by common sense. However, Jonathan Schaffer turns this argument on its head and uses it to defend priority monism. He suggests that common sense holds that the cosmos is a whole, of which ordinary physical objects are arbitrary portions, and that arbitrary portions depend (...)
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  • Tropes – The Basic Constituents of Powerful Particulars.Markku Keinänen - 2011 - Dialectica 65 (3):419-450.
    This article presents a trope bundle theory of simple substances, the Strong Nuclear Theory[SNT] building on the schematic basis offered by Simons's (1994) Nuclear Theory[NT]. The SNT adopts Ellis's (2001) dispositional essentialist conception of simple substances as powerful particulars: all of their monadic properties are dispositional. Moreover, simple substances necessarily belong to some natural kind with a real essence formed by monadic properties. The SNT develops further the construction of substances the NT proposes to obtain an adequate trope bundle theory (...)
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  • Some Consequences (and Enablings) of Process Metaphysics.Mark H. Bickhard - 2011 - Axiomathes 21 (1):3-32.
    The interactivist model has explored a number of consequences of process metaphysics. These include reversals of some fundamental metaphysical assumptions dominant since the ancient Greeks, and multiple further consequences throughout the metaphysics of the world, minds, and persons. This article surveys some of these consequences, ranging from issues regarding entities and supervenience to the emergence of normative phenomena such as representation, rationality, persons, and ethics.
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  • Monism: The Priority of the Whole.Jonathan Schaffer - 2010 - Philosophical Review 119 (1):31-76.
    Consider a circle and a pair of its semicircles. Which is prior, the whole or its parts? Are the semicircles dependent abstractions from their whole, or is the circle a derivative construction from its parts? Now in place of the circle consider the entire cosmos (the ultimate concrete whole), and in place of the pair of semicircles consider the myriad particles (the ultimate concrete parts). Which if either is ultimately prior, the one ultimate whole or its many ultimate parts?
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  • (1 other version)Against Pointillisme: a Call to Arms.Jeremy Butterfield - unknown
    This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or point-sized objects located there; so that properties of spatial or spatiotemporal regions and their material contents are determined by the point-by-point facts. Elsewhere, I argued against pointillisme about chrono-geometry, and about velocity in classical mechanics. In both cases, attention focussed on temporal extrinsicality: (...)
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  • Ontic structural realism as a metaphysics of objects.Michael Esfeld & Vincent Lam - 2011 - In Alisa Bokulich & Peter Bokulich (eds.), Scientific Structuralism. Springer Science+Business Media. pp. 143-159.
    The paper spells out five different accounts of the relationship between objects and relations three of which are versions of ontic structural realism. We argue that the distinction between objects and properties, including relations, is merely a conceptual one by contrast to an ontological one: properties, including relations, are modes, that is the concrete, particular ways in which objects exist. We then set out moderate OSR as the view according to which irreducible relations are central ways in which the fundamental (...)
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  • Against Experimental Metaphysics.Martin R. Jones & Robert K. Clifton - 1993 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 18 (1):295-316.
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  • Identity in physics: Statistics and the (non-)individuality of quantum particles.Matteo Morganti - 2011 - In Henk W. de Regt (ed.), EPSA Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009. Springer.
    This paper discusses the issue of the identity and individuality (or lack thereof) of quantum mechanical particles. It first reconstructs, on the basis of the extant literature, a general argument in favour of the conclusion that such particles are not individual objects. Then, it critically assesses each one of the argument’s premises. The upshot is that, in fact, there is no compelling reason for believing that quantum particles are not individual objects.
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  • A new look at relational holism in quantum mechanics.Matteo Morganti - 2009 - Philosophy of Science 76 (5):1027--1038.
    Teller argued that violations of Bell’s inequalities are to be explained by interpreting quantum entangled systems according to ‘relational holism’, that is, by postulating that they exhibit irreducible (‘inherent’) relations. Teller also suggested a possible application of this idea to quantum statistics. However, the basic proposal was not explained in detail nor has the additional idea about statistics been articulated in further work. In this article, I reconsider relational holism, amending it and spelling it out as appears necessary for a (...)
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  • Inherent Properties and Statistics with Individual Particles in Quantum Mechanics.Matteo Morganti - 2009 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (3):223-231.
    This paper puts forward the hypothesis that the distinctive features of quantum statistics are exclusively determined by the nature of the properties it describes. In particular, all statistically relevant properties of identical quantum particles in many-particle systems are conjectured to be irreducible, ‘inherent’ properties only belonging to the whole system. This allows one to explain quantum statistics without endorsing the ‘Received View’ that particles are non-individuals, or postulating that quantum systems obey peculiar probability distributions, or assuming that there are primitive (...)
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  • Three conceptions of explaining how possibly—and one reductive account.Johannes Persson - 2011 - In Henk W. de Regt (ed.), EPSA Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009. Springer. pp. 275--286.
    Philosophers of science have often favoured reductive approaches to how-possibly explanation. This article identifies three alternative conceptions making how-possibly explanation an interesting phenomenon in its own right. The first variety approaches “how possibly X?” by showing that X is not epistemically impossible. This can sometimes be achieved by removing misunderstandings concerning the implications of one’s current belief system but involves characteristically a modification of this belief system so that acceptance of X does not result in contradiction. The second variety offers (...)
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  • Reduction and Emergence in Bose-Einstein Condensates.Richard Healey - 2011 - Foundations of Physics 41 (6):1007-1030.
    A closer look at some proposed Gedanken-experiments on BECs promises to shed light on several aspects of reduction and emergence in physics. These include the relations between classical descriptions and different quantum treatments of macroscopic systems, and the emergence of new properties and even new objects as a result of spontaneous symmetry breaking.
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  • Dispositions and the Argument from Science.Neil E. Williams - 2011 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (1):71 - 90.
    Central to the debate between Humean and anti-Humean metaphysics is the question of whether dispositions can exist in the absence of categorical properties that ground them (that is, where the causal burden is shifted on to categorical properties on which the dispositions would therefore supervene). Dispositional essentialists claim that they can; categoricalists reject the possibility of such ?baseless? dispositions, requiring that all dispositions must ultimately have categorical bases. One popular argument, recently dubbed the ?Argument from Science?, has appeared in one (...)
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  • Holism and nonseparability in physics.Richard Healey - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    It has sometimes been suggested that quantum phenomena exhibit a characteristic holism or nonseparability, and that this distinguishes quantum from classical physics. One puzzling quantum phenomenon arises when one performs measurements of spin or polarization on certain separated quantum systems. The results of these measurements exhibit patterns of statistical correlation that resist traditional causal explanation. Some have held that it is possible to understand these patterns as instances or consequences of quantum holism or nonseparability. Just what holism and nonseparability are (...)
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  • Metaphysics of science between metaphysics and science.Michael Esfeld - 2007 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 74 (1):199-213.
    The paper argues that metaphysics depends upon science when it comes to claims about the constitution of the real world. That thesis is illustrated by considering the examples of global supervenience, the tenseless vs. the tensed theory of time and existence, events vs. substances, and relations vs. intrinsic properties. An argument is sketched out for a metaphysics of a four-dimensional block universe whose content are events and their sequences, events consisting in physical properties instantiated at space-time points, these properties being (...)
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  • (1 other version)Quantum entanglement and a metaphysics of relations.Michael Esfeld - 2004 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35 (4):601-617.
    This paper argues for a metaphysics of relations based on a characterization of quantum entanglement in terms of non-separability, thereby regarding entanglement as a sort of holism. By contrast to a radical metaphysics of relations, the position set out in this paper recognizes things that stand in the relations, but claims that, as far as the relations are concerned, there is no need for these things to have qualitative intrinsic properties underlying the relations. This position thus opposes a metaphysics of (...)
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  • For whom the bell arguments toll.James Hawthorne & Michael Silberstein - 1995 - Synthese 102 (1):99-138.
    We will formulate two Bell arguments. Together they show that if the probabilities given by quantum mechanics are approximately correct, then the properties exhibited by certain physical systems must be nontrivially dependent on thetypes of measurements performedand eithernonlocally connected orholistically related to distant events. Although a number of related arguments have appeared since John Bell's original paper (1964), they tend to be either highly technical or to lack full generality. The following arguments depend on the weakest of premises, and the (...)
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  • Why the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is not contingently true either.Steven French - 1989 - Synthese 78 (2):141 - 166.
    Faced with strong arguments to the effect that Leibniz''sPrinciple of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) is not a necessary truth, many supporters of the Principle have staged a strategic retreat to the claim that it is contingently true in this, the actual, world. The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of the various forms of PII in both classical and quantum physics, and it is concluded that this latter view is at best doubtful, at worst, simply wrong.
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  • From nihilism to monism.Jonathan Schaffer - 2007 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (2):175 – 191.
    Mereological nihilism is the view that all concrete objects are simple. Existence monism is the view that the only concrete object is one big simple: the world. I will argue that nihilism culminates in monism. The nihilist demands the simplest sufficient ontology, and the monist delivers it.
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  • Forms of quantum nonseparability and related philosophical consequences.Vassilios Karakostas - 2004 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 35 (2):283 - 312.
    Standard quantum mechanics unquestionably violates the separability principle that classical physics (be it point-like analytic, statistical, or field-theoretic) accustomed us to consider as valid. In this paper, quantum nonseparability is viewed as a consequence of the Hilbert-space quantum mechanical formalism, avoiding thus any direct recourse to the ramifications of Kochen-Specker’s argument or Bell’s inequality. Depending on the mode of assignment of states to physical systems – unit state vectors versus non-idempotent density operators – we distinguish between strong/relational and weak/deconstructional forms (...)
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  • Nonlocality and the aharonov-Bohm effect.Richard Healey - 1997 - Philosophy of Science 64 (1):18-41.
    At first sight the Aharonov- Bohm effect appears nonlocal, though not in the way EPR/Bell correlations are generally acknowledged to be nonlocal. This paper applies an analysis of nonlocality to the Aharonov- Bohm effect to show that its peculiarities may be blamed either on a failure of a principle of local action or on a failure of a principle of separability. Different interpretations of quantum mechanics disagree on how blame should be allocated. The parallel between the Aharonov- Bohm effect and (...)
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  • Quantum physics and the identity of indiscernibles.Steven French & Michael Redhead - 1988 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (2):233-246.
    Department of History and Philosophy of Science. University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH This paper is concerned with the question of whether atomic particles of the same species, i. e. with the same intrinsic state-independent properties of mass, spin, electric charge, etc, violate the Leibnizian Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles, in the sense that, while there is more than one of them, their state-dependent properties may also all be the same. The answer depends on what exactly (...)
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  • Holism in cartesianism and in today's philosophy of physics.Michael Esfeld - 1999 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 30 (1):17-36.
    The aim of this paper is to contribute to a more balanced judgement than the widespread impression that the changes which are called for in today's philosophy of physics and which centre around the concept of holism amount to a rupture with the framework of Cartesian philosophy of physics. I argue that this framework includes a sort of holism: As a result of the identification of matter with space, any physical property can be instantiated only if there is the whole (...)
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  • Quantum holism and the philosophy of mind.Michael Esfeld - 1999 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (1):23-38.
    This paper attempts to build a bridge between the interpretation of quantum theory and the philosophy of mind. In contrast to other such attempts, the bridge which this paper suggests does not consist in extending features of quantum theory to the philosophy of mind. The argument of this paper is that the discussion about a revision of the Cartesian tradition in current philosophy of mind is relevant to the interpretation of quantum theory: taking this discussion into account sharpens up the (...)
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  • Downward causation in fluid convection.Robert C. Bishop - 2008 - Synthese 160 (2):229 - 248.
    Recent developments in nonlinear dynamics have found wide application in many areas of science from physics to neuroscience. Nonlinear phenomena such as feedback loops, inter-level relations, wholes constraining and modifying the behavior of their parts, and memory effects are interesting candidates for emergence and downward causation. Rayleigh–Bénard convection is an example of a nonlinear system that, I suggest, yields important insights for metaphysics and philosophy of science. In this paper I propose convection as a model for downward causation in classical (...)
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  • How properties emerge.Paul Humphreys - 1997 - Philosophy of Science 64 (1):1-17.
    A framework for representing a specific kind of emergent property instance is given. A solution to a generalized version of the exclusion argument is then provided and it is shown that upwards and downwards causation is unproblematical for that kind of emergence. One real example of this kind of emergence is briefly described and the suggestion made that emergence may be more common than current opinions allow.
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  • The completeness of physics.David Spurrett - 1999 - Dissertation, University of Natal, Durban
    The present work is focussed on the completeness of physics, or what is here called the Completeness Thesis: the claim that the domain of the physical is causally closed. Two major questions are tackled: How best is the Completeness Thesis to be formulated? What can be said in defence of the Completeness Thesis? My principal conclusions are that the Completeness Thesis can be coherently formulated, and that the evidence in favour if it significantly outweighs that against it. In opposition to (...)
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  • Physicalism and ontological holism.Michael Esfeld - 1999 - Metaphilosophy 30 (4):319-337.
    The claim of this paper is that we should envisage physicalism as an ontological holism. Our current basic physics, quantum theory, suggests that, ontologically speaking, we have to assume one global quantum state of the world; many of the properties that are often taken to be intrinsic properties of physical systems are in fact relations, which are determined by that global quantum state. The paper elaborates on this conception of physicalism as an ontological holism and considers issues such as supervenience, (...)
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  • 12 God and/as the Universe.István Aranyosi - 2024 - In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), Ontology of Divinity. De Gruyter. pp. 269-290.
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  • (2 other versions)Wave Function Realism.Alyssa Ney - manuscript
    This is an introduction to wave function realism for a compendium on the philosophy of quantum mechanics that will be edited and translated into Portuguese by Raoni Arroyo, entitled Compêndio de Filosofia da Física Quântica. This essay presents the history of wave function realism, its various interpretations, the main arguments that are given for the position, and the main objections that have been raised to it.
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  • Heterodox underdetermination: Metaphysical options for discernibility and (non-)entanglement.Maren Bräutigam - 2024 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 103 (C):77-84.
    Broadly speaking, there are three views on whether Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) is violated in the case of similar particles. According to the earliest view, PII is always violated (call this the no discernibility view); according to the more recent weak discernibility view, PII is at least valid in a weak sense. No and weak discernibility have been referred to as orthodoxy. Steven French has argued that although PII is violated, similar particles can still be regarded (...)
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  • Three arguments for wave function realism.Alyssa Ney - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-18.
    Wave function realism is an interpretative framework for quantum theories which recommends taking the central ontology of these theories to consist of the quantum wave function, understood as a field on a high-dimensional space. This paper presents and evaluates three standard arguments for wave function realism, and clarifies the sort of ontological framework these arguments support.
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  • Interpreting Quantum Entanglement: Steps towards Coherentist Quantum Mechanics.Matteo Morganti & Claudio Calosi - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (3):865-891.
    We put forward a new, ‘coherentist’ account of quantum entanglement, according to which entangled systems are characterized by symmetric relations of ontological dependence among the component particles. We compare this coherentist viewpoint with the two most popular alternatives currently on offer—structuralism and holism—and argue that it is essentially different from, and preferable to, both. In the course of this article, we point out how coherentism might be extended beyond the case of entanglement and further articulated.
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  • (1 other version)La Bohume.Neil Dewar - 2020 - Synthese 197 (10):4207-4225.
    This paper critically assesses whether quantum entanglement can be made compatible with Humean supervenience. After reviewing the prima facie tension between entanglement and Humeanism, I outline a recently-proposed Humean response, and argue that it is subject to two problems: one concerning the determinacy of quantities, and one concerning its relationship to scientific practice.
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  • Ontology of Divinity.Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.) - 2024 - De Gruyter.
    This volume announces a new era in the philosophy of God. Many of its contributions work to create stronger links between the philosophy of God, on the one hand, and mathematics or metamathematics, on the other hand. It is about not only the possibilities of applying mathematics or metamathematics to questions about God, but also the reverse question: Does the philosophy of God have anything to offer mathematics or metamathematics? The remaining contributions tackle stereotypes in the philosophy of religion. The (...)
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  • Laws of Nature and Theory Choice.Alessandro Torza - 2022 - Synthese 200 (6):1-28.
    I articulate a Global Best-System Account (GBSA) of laws of nature along broadly Mill–Ramsey–Lewis lines. The guiding idea is that the job of laws is to capture real patterns across time—where a pattern is real if it allows to compress information about matters of particular fact. The GBSA’s key ingredient is a definition of ‘best system’ in terms of a ranking method that meets a number of desiderata: it is rigorously defined; it outputs the ranking based on the candidate systems’ (...)
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  • Processual Emergentism.Maciej Dombrowski - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-23.
    The turn of the twenty-first century was a period of intensified research on the description of the world as a complex structure built of dynamical systems occurring at different levels of reality. Such systems can be described as bundles of processes. Therefore, the most empirically adequate ontology turns out to be processualism. In this paper, I describe a contemporary version of processual philosophy, which I refer to as processual emergentism. Within the proposed position, the classical formulations of processualism and emergentism (...)
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  • A Quantum-Theoretic Argument Against Naturalism.Bruce L. Gordon - 2011 - In Bruce Gordon & William A. Dembski (eds.), The nature of nature: examining the role of naturalism in science. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books. pp. 179-214.
    Quantum theory offers mathematical descriptions of measurable phenomena with great facility and accuracy, but it provides absolutely no understanding of why any particular quantum outcome is observed. It is the province of genuine explanations to tell us how things actually work—that is, why such descriptions hold and why such predictions are true. Quantum theory is long on the what, both mathematically and observationally, but almost completely silent on the how and the why. What is even more interesting is that, in (...)
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  • (1 other version)Humean supervenience and tripartite entanglement relations.Lorenzo Lorenzetti - 2022 - Axiomathes 32 (2):217-231.
    It has been argued that Humean Supervenience is threatened by the existence of quantum entanglement relations. The most conservative strategy for defending HS is to add the problematic entanglement relations to the supervenience basis, alongside spatiotemporal relations. In this paper, I’m going to argue against this strategy by showing how certain particular cases of tripartite entanglement states – i.e. GHZ states – posit some crucial problems for this amended version of HS. Moreover, I will show that the principle of free (...)
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  • On entanglement as a relation.Enrico Cinti, Alberto Corti & Marco Sanchioni - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (1):1-29.
    This paper aims to characterise properly entanglement as an external relation obtaining between multiple quantum degrees of freedom. In particular, we argue that the entanglement relation is a unique relation fully characterised by mutual information, i.e. a quantity standardly used as a measure of entanglement. This analysis leads us to propose a new metaphysical account of entanglement, which we call Relational Entanglement Tesseract. Such an account characterises entanglement for both bipartite and multipartite cases, and, at the same time, it satisfies (...)
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  • Laws beyond spacetime.Vincent Lam & Christian Wüthrich - 2023 - Synthese 202 (3):1-24.
    Quantum gravity’s suggestion that spacetime may be emergent and so only exist contingently would force a radical reconception of extant analyses of laws of nature. Humeanism presupposes a spatiotemporal mosaic of particular matters of fact on which laws supervene; primitivism and dispositionalism conceive of the action of primitive laws or of dispositions as a process of ‘nomic production’ unfolding over time. We show how the Humean supervenience basis of non-modal facts and primitivist or dispositionalist accounts of nomic production can be (...)
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  • James Ladyman und Don Ross. Every Thing Must Go - Metaphysics Naturalized (2007) [Rezension].Johannes Heinle - manuscript
    Eine Rezension des Buches "Every Thing Must Go - Metaphysics Naturalized" von James Ladyman und Don Ross.
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  • A taxonomy for the mereology of entangled quantum systems.Paul M. Näger & Niko Strobach - manuscript
    The emerging field of quantum mereology considers part-whole relations in quantum systems. Entangled quantum systems pose a peculiar problem in the field, since their total states are not reducible to that of their parts. While there exist several established proposals for modelling entangled systems, like monistic holism or relational holism, there is considerable unclarity, which further positions are available. Using the lambda operator and plural logic as formal tools, we review and develop conceivable models and evaluate their consistency and distinctness. (...)
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  • The Mereological Problem of Entanglement.Paul M. Näger - manuscript
    It is well-known that the entangled quantum state of a composite object cannot be reduced to the states of its parts. This quantum holism provides a peculiar challenge to formulate an appropriate mereological model: When a system is in an entangled state, which objects are there on the micro and macro level, and which of the objects carries which properties? This paper chooses a modeling approach to answer these questions: It proceeds from a systematic overview of consistent mereological models for (...)
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  • Integrated information theory of consciousness is a functionalist emergentism.Ignacio Cea - 2020 - Synthese 8 (1-2):2199-2224.
    In this paper I argue that the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness has an underlying emergentist metaphysics, specifically of a kind that has received minimal attention and we may call functionalist emergentism. I will try to show that in this scientific theory conscious experience is a functional-role property possessed by the whole system, not by their parts, which is dependent on, but also (purportedly) causally powerful over and above, the properties of the parts. However, I will argue that depicting conscious (...)
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  • Dispositional Essentialism and Ontic Structural Realism - a hybrid view.Julie Godfrey - 2020 - Dissertation, Durham University
    Dispositional Essentialism and Ontic Structural Realism aim to account for modality. Dispositional Essentialism takes properties to account for laws. In particular, it takes determinate properties to account for laws of nature, which are determinable. Ontic Structural Realism does the reverse. According to Steven French, Ontic Structural Realism takes laws and symmetries to be part of the fundamental structure of the world. Determinate properties are “dependent” on laws. The core difference between Dispositional Essentialism and Ontic Structural Realism’s accounts of modality is (...)
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  • (1 other version)Humean supervenience and tripartite entanglement relations.Lorenzo Lorenzetti - 2020 - Axiomathes 1:1-15.
    It has been argued that Humean Supervenience is threatened by the existence of quantum entanglement relations. The most conservative strategy for defending HS is to add the problematic entanglement relations to the supervenience basis, alongside spatiotemporal relations. In this paper, I’m going to argue against this strategy by showing how certain particular cases of tripartite entanglement states – i.e. GHZ states – posit some crucial problems for this amended version of HS. Moreover, I will show that the principle of free (...)
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  • Path Integrals and Holism.Marco Forgione - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (8):799-827.
    This paper argues that the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics suggests a form of holism for which the whole (total ensemble of paths) has properties that are not strongly reducible to the properties of the parts (the single trajectories). Feynman’s sum over histories calculates the probability amplitude of a particle moving within a boundary by summing over all the possible trajectories that the particle can undertake. These trajectories and their individual probability amplitudes are thus necessary in calculating the total (...)
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  • From Time Asymmetry to Quantum Entanglement: The Humean Unification.Eddy Keming Chen - 2022 - Noûs 56 (1):227-255.
    Two of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics are (1) what gives rise to the arrow of time and (2) what the ontology of quantum mechanics is. I propose a unified 'Humean' solution to the two problems. Humeanism allows us to incorporate the Past Hypothesis and the Statistical Postulate into the best system, which we then use to simplify the quantum state of the universe. This enables us to confer the nomological status to the quantum state in (...)
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  • Lowe’s Eliminativism about Relations and the Analysis of Relational Inherence.Markku Keinänen - 2022 - In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), E. J. Lowe and Ontology. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 105-122.
    Contrary to widely shared opinion in analytic metaphysics, E.J. Lowe argues against the existence of relations in his posthumously published paper There are probably no relations (2016). In this article, I assess Lowe’s eliminativist strategy, which aims to show that all contingent “relational facts” have a monadic foundation in modes characterizing objects. Second, I present two difficult ontological problems supporting eliminativism about relations. Against eliminativism, metaphysicians of science have argued that relations might well be needed in the best a posteriori (...)
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