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  1. Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 2008 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Bas C. van Fraassen presents an original exploration of how we represent the world.
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  • Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth.Stathis Psillos - 1999 - New York: Routledge.
    Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track: that the world really is the way our best scientific theories describe it. In his book, Stathis Psillos gives us a detailed and comprehensive study which restores the intuitive plausibility of scientific realism. We see that throughout the twentieth century, scientific realism has been challenged by philosophical positions from all angles: from reductive empiricism, to instrumentalism and to modern sceptical empiricism. _Scientific Realism_ explains that the history (...)
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  • An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory.Michael Peskin & Dan Schroeder - 1995 - Westview Press.
    An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory is a textbook intended for the graduate physics course covering relativistic quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and Feynman diagrams. The authors make these subjects accessible through carefully worked examples illustrating the technical aspects of the subject, and intuitive explanations of what is going on behind the mathematics. After presenting the basics of quantum electrodynamics, the authors discuss the theory of renormalization and its relation to statistical mechanics, and introduce the renormalization group. This discussion sets the (...)
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  • The interpretation of gauge symmetry.Michael Redhead - 2002 - In Katherine Brading & Elena Castellani (eds.), Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 124--139.
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  • To what physics corresponds.Simon Saunders - 1993 - In S. French & H. Kamminga (eds.), Correspondence, Invariance and Heuristics: Essays in Honour of Heinz Post. Dordrecht: Reidel. pp. 295--325.
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  • (1 other version)Time.Ned Markosian - 2010 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Discussions of the nature of time, and of various issues related to time, have always featured prominently in philosophy, but they have been especially important since the beginning of the 20th Century. This article contains a brief overview of some of the main topics in the philosophy of time — Fatalism; Reductionism and Platonism with respect to time; the topology of time; McTaggart's arguments; The A Theory and The B Theory; Presentism, Eternalism, and The Growing Universe Theory; time travel; and (...)
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  • Symplectic Reduction and the Problem of Time in Nonrelativistic Mechanics.Karim P. Y. Thébault - 2012 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (4):789-824.
    Symplectic reduction is a formal process through which degeneracy within the mathematical representations of physical systems displaying gauge symmetry can be controlled via the construction of a reduced phase space. Typically such reduced spaces provide us with a formalism for representing both instantaneous states and evolution uniquely and for this reason can be justifiably afforded the status of fun- damental dynamical arena - the otiose structure having been eliminated from the original phase space. Essential to the application of symplectic reduction (...)
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  • Time travel and time machines.Chris Smeenk & Christian Wuthrich - 2011 - In Craig Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford University Press. pp. 577-630.
    This paper is an enquiry into the logical, metaphysical, and physical possibility of time travel understood in the sense of the existence of closed worldlines that can be traced out by physical objects. We argue that none of the purported paradoxes rule out time travel either on grounds of logic or metaphysics. More relevantly, modern spacetime theories such as general relativity seem to permit models that feature closed worldlines. We discuss, in the context of Gödel's infamous argument for the ideality (...)
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  • The Flow of Time.Huw Price - 2011 - In Craig Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford University Press.
    I distinguish three views, a defence of any one of which would go some way towards vindicating the view that there is something objective about the passage of time: the view that the present moment is objectively distinguished; the view that time has an objective direction – that it is an objective matter which of two non-simultaneous events is the earlier and which the later; the view that there is something objectively dynamic, flux-like, or "flow-like" about time. I argue that (...)
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  • General relativity as a perfectly Machian theory.Julian B. Barbour - 1995 - In Julian B. Barbour & H. Pfister (eds.), Mach's Principle: From Newton's Bucket to Quantum Gravity. Birkhäuser. pp. 214--36.
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  • From metaphysics to physics.Gordon Belot & John Earman - 1999 - In Jeremy Butterfield & Constantine Pagonis (eds.), From Physics to Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 166--86.
    We discuss the relationship between the interpretative problems of quantum gravity and those of general relativity. We argue that classical and quantum theories of gravity resuscitate venerable philosophical questions about the nature of space, time, and change; and that the resolution of some of the difficulties facing physicists working on quantum theories of gravity would appear to require philosophical as well as scientific creativity.
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  • Structural realism: The best of both worlds?John Worrall - 1989 - Dialectica 43 (1-2):99-124.
    The no-miracles argument for realism and the pessimistic meta-induction for anti-realism pull in opposite directions. Structural Realism---the position that the mathematical structure of mature science reflects reality---relieves this tension.
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  • Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Don Ross, David Spurrett & John G. Collier.
    Every Thing Must Go aruges that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it ...
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  • Identity in physics: a historical, philosophical, and formal analysis.Steven French & Décio Krause - 2006 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Decio Krause.
    Steven French and Decio Krause examine the metaphysical foundations of quantum physics. They draw together historical, logical, and philosophical perspectives on the fundamental nature of quantum particles and offer new insights on a range of important issues. Focusing on the concepts of identity and individuality, the authors explore two alternative metaphysical views; according to one, quantum particles are no different from books, tables, and people in this respect; according to the other, they most certainly are. Each view comes with certain (...)
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  • On symplectic reduction in classical mechanics.Jeremy Butterfield - 2006 - In J. Butterfield & J. Earman (eds.), Handbook of the philosophy of physics. Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 1–131.
    This paper expounds the modern theory of symplectic reduction in finite-dimensional Hamiltonian mechanics. This theory generalizes the well-known connection between continuous symmetries and conserved quantities, i.e. Noether's theorem. It also illustrates one of mechanics' grand themes: exploiting a symmetry so as to reduce the number of variables needed to treat a problem. The exposition emphasises how the theory provides insights about the rotation group and the rigid body. The theory's device of quotienting a state space also casts light on philosophical (...)
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  • Symmetry and gauge freedom.Gordon Belot - 2002 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 34 (2):189-225.
    The classical field theories that underlie the quantum treatments of the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces share a peculiar feature: specifying the initial state of the field determines the evolution of some degrees of freedom of the theory while leaving the evolution of some others wholly arbitrary. This strongly suggests that some of the variables of the standard state space lack physical content-intuitively, the space of states of such a theory is of higher dimension than the corresponding space of genuine (...)
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  • Individuation by acquaintance and by stipulation.David Lewis - 1983 - Philosophical Review 92 (1):3-32.
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  • (1 other version)A confutation of convergent realism.Larry Laudan - 1981 - Philosophy of Science 48 (1):19-49.
    This essay contains a partial exploration of some key concepts associated with the epistemology of realist philosophies of science. It shows that neither reference nor approximate truth will do the explanatory jobs that realists expect of them. Equally, several widely-held realist theses about the nature of inter-theoretic relations and scientific progress are scrutinized and found wanting. Finally, it is argued that the history of science, far from confirming scientific realism, decisively confutes several extant versions of avowedly 'naturalistic' forms of scientific (...)
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  • Explanatory unification.Philip Kitcher - 1981 - Philosophy of Science 48 (4):507-531.
    The official model of explanation proposed by the logical empiricists, the covering law model, is subject to familiar objections. The goal of the present paper is to explore an unofficial view of explanation which logical empiricists have sometimes suggested, the view of explanation as unification. I try to show that this view can be developed so as to provide insight into major episodes in the history of science, and that it can overcome some of the most serious difficulties besetting the (...)
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  • (1 other version)Studies in the logic of explanation.Carl Gustav Hempel & Paul Oppenheim - 1948 - Philosophy of Science 15 (2):135-175.
    To explain the phenomena in the world of our experience, to answer the question “why?” rather than only the question “what?”, is one of the foremost objectives of all rational inquiry; and especially, scientific research in its various branches strives to go beyond a mere description of its subject matter by providing an explanation of the phenomena it investigates. While there is rather general agreement about this chief objective of science, there exists considerable difference of opinion as to the function (...)
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  • In defense of convergent realism.Clyde L. Hardin & Alexander Rosenberg - 1982 - Philosophy of Science 49 (4):604-615.
    Many realists have maintained that the success of scientific theories can be explained only if they may be regarded as approximately true. Laurens Laudan has in turn contended that a necessary condition for a theory's being approximately true is that its central terms refer, and since many successful theories of the past have employed central terms which we now understand to be non-referential, realism cannot explain their success. The present paper argues that a realist can adopt a view of reference (...)
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  • Towards structural realism.Jonathan Bain - manuscript
    In the debate over scientific realism, attention has been given recently to a realist position referred to as structural realism. In this essay, I offer a version of this position and indicate how it addresses two standard forms of underdetermination argument posed by the anti-realist.
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  • Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - In James Ladyman & Don Ross (eds.), Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized. New York: Oxford University Press.
    This book argues that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is, and not on philosophers' a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science. In addition to showing how recent metaphysics has drifted away from connection with all other serious scholarly inquiry as a result of not heeding this restriction, this book demonstrates how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental physics, which, when combined (...)
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  • (1 other version)Geometry and Motion.Gordon Belot - 2003 - In Peter Clark & Katherine Hawley (eds.), Philosophy of science today. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • What is structural realism?James Ladyman - 1998 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 29 (3):409-424.
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  • The Scientific Image.William Demopoulos & Bas C. van Fraassen - 1982 - Philosophical Review 91 (4):603.
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  • Albert Einstein Meets David Lewis.Jeremy Butterfield - 1988 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988:65-81.
    I reject Norton and Earman's hole argument that spacetime substantivalism is incompatible with determinism. I reconcile these both technically and philosophically. There is a technical definition of determinism that is not violated by pairs of models of the kind used in the hole argument. And technicalities aside, the basic idea of determinism is not violated if we claim that at most one of the two models represents a possible world. This claim can be justified either by metrical essentialism, or by (...)
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  • Metaphysical underdetermination: why worry?Steven French - 2011 - Synthese 180 (2):205 - 221.
    Various forms of underdetermination that might threaten the realist stance are examined. That which holds between different 'formulations' of a theory (such as the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formulations of classical mechanics) is considered in some detail, as is the 'metaphysical' underdetermination invoked to support 'ontic structural realism'. The problematic roles of heuristic fruitfulness and surplus structure in attempts to break these forms of underdetermination are discussed and an approach emphasizing the relevant structural commonalities is defended.
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  • Physics and Leibniz's principles.Simon Saunders - 2002 - In Katherine Brading & Elena Castellani (eds.), Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 289--307.
    It is shown that the Hilbert-Bernays-Quine principle of identity of indiscernibles applies uniformly to all the contentious cases of symmetries in physics, including permutation symmetry in classical and quantum mechanics. It follows that there is no special problem with the notion of objecthood in physics. Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason is considered as well; this too applies uniformly. But given the new principle of identity, it no longer implies that space, or atoms, are unreal.
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  • (1 other version)Points, particles, and structural realism.Oliver Pooley - 2006 - In Dean Rickles, Steven French & Juha T. Saatsi (eds.), The Structural Foundations of Quantum Gravity. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 83--120.
    In his paper ``What is Structural Realism?'' James Ladyman drew a distinction between epistemological structural realism and metaphysical (or ontic) structural realism. He also drew a suggestive analogy between the perennial debate between substantivalist and relationalist interpretations of spacetime on the one hand, and the debate about whether quantum mechanics treats identical particles as individuals or as `non-individuals' on the other. In both cases, Ladyman's suggestion is that an ontic structural realist interpretation of the physics might be just what is (...)
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  • The representation of time and change in mechanics.Gordon Belot - 2006 - In Jeremy Butterfield & John Earman (eds.), Philosophy of Physics. Amsterdam and Boston: Elsevier. pp. 133--227.
    This chapter is concerned with the representation of time and change in classical (i.e., non-quantum) physical theories. One of the main goals of the chapter is to attempt to clarify the nature and scope of the so-called problem of time: a knot of technical and interpretative problems that appear to stand in the way of attempts to quantize general relativity, and which have their roots in the general covariance of that theory. The most natural approach to these questions is via (...)
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  • Scientific explanation.James Woodward - 1979 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 30 (1):41-67.
    Issues concerning scientific explanation have been a focus of philosophical attention from Pre- Socratic times through the modern period. However, recent discussion really begins with the development of the Deductive-Nomological (DN) model. This model has had many advocates (including Popper 1935, 1959, Braithwaite 1953, Gardiner, 1959, Nagel 1961) but unquestionably the most detailed and influential statement is due to Carl Hempel (Hempel 1942, 1965, and Hempel & Oppenheim 1948). These papers and the reaction to them have structured subsequent discussion concerning (...)
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  • Thoroughly muddled Mctaggart: Or, how to abuse gauge freedom to create metaphysical monostrosities.Tim Maudlin - 2002 - Philosophers' Imprint 2:1-23.
    It has long been a commonplace that there is a problem understanding the role of time when one tries to quantize the General Theory of Relativity (GTR). In his "Thoroughly Modern McTaggart" (Philosophers' Imprint Vol 2, No. 3), John Earman presents several arguments to the conclusion that there is a problem understanding change and the passage of time in the unadorned GTR, quite apart from quantization. His Young McTaggart argues that according to the GTR, no physical magnitude ever changes. A (...)
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  • (1 other version)Studies in the Logic of Explanation.Carl Hempel & Paul Oppenheim - 1948 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 14 (2):133-133.
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  • The Structure of Biological Theories.Paul Thompson - 1989 - State University of New York Press.
    The central thesis of this book is that the semantic conception is a logical methodologically and heuristically richer and more accurate account of scientific theorizing, and in particular of theorizing in evolutionary biology, than the ...
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  • Realism about what?Roger Jones - 1991 - Philosophy of Science 58 (2):185-202.
    Preanalytically, we are all scientific realists. But both philosophers and scientists become uncomfortable when forced into analysis. In the case of scientists, this discomfort often arises from practical difficulties in setting out a carefully described set of objects which adequately account for the phenomena with which they are concerned. This paper offers a set of representative examples of these difficulties for contemporary physicists. These examples challenge the traditional realist vision of mature scientific activity as struggling toward an ontologically well-defined world (...)
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  • (1 other version)Time.Ned Markosian - 2014 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2014.
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  • The ’Structure’ of Physics.Jill North - 2009 - Journal of Philosophy 106 (2):57–88.
    We are used to talking about the “structure” posited by a given theory of physics, such as the spacetime structure of relativity. What is “structure”? What does the mathematical structure used to formulate a theory tell us about the physical world according to the theory? What if there are different mathematical formulations of a given theory? Do different formulations posit different structures, or are they merely notational variants? I consider the case of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian classical mechanics. I argue that, (...)
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  • Time in quantum mechanics: a story of confusion.Jan Hilgevoord - 2005 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 36 (1):29-60.
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  • An Interpretive Introduction to Quantum Field Theory.Paul Teller - 1995 - Princeton University Press.
    Quantum mechanics is a subject that has captured the imagination of a surprisingly broad range of thinkers, including many philosophers of science. Quantum field theory, however, is a subject that has been discussed mostly by physicists. This is the first book to present quantum field theory in a manner that makes it accessible to philosophers. Because it presents a lucid view of the theory and debates that surround the theory, An Interpretive Introduction to Quantum Field Theory will interest students of (...)
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  • Quantisation, Representation and Reduction; How Should We Interpret the Quantum Hamiltonian Constraints of Canonical Gravity?Karim P. Y. Thébault - unknown
    Hamiltonian constraints feature in the canonical formulation of general relativity. Unlike typical constraints they cannot be associated with a reduction procedure leading to a non-trivial reduced phase space and this means the physical interpretation of their quantum analogues is ambiguous. In particular, can we assume that “quantisation commutes with reduction” and treat the promotion of these constraints to operators annihilating the wave function, according to a Dirac type procedure, as leading to a Hilbert space equivalent to that reached by quantisation (...)
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  • No presentism in quantum gravity.Christian Wüthrich - 2010 - In Vesselin Petkov (ed.), Space, Time, and Spacetime: Physical and Philosophical Implications of Minkowski's Unification of Space and Time. Springer.
    This essay offers a reaction to the recent resurgence of presentism in the philosophy of time. What is of particular interest in this renaissance is that a number of recent arguments supporting presentism are crafted in an untypically naturalistic vein, breathing new life into a metaphysics of time with a bad track record of co-habitation with modern physics. Against this trend, the present essay argues that the pressure on presentism exerted by special relativity and its core lesson of Lorentz symmetry (...)
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  • The timelessness of quantum gravity: I. The evidence from the classical theory.Julian Barbour - 1994 - Classical and Quantum Gravity 11:2853--73.
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  • Events and Observables in Generally Invariant Spacetime Theories.Hans Westman & Sebastiano Sonego - 2008 - Foundations of Physics 38 (10):908-915.
    We address the problem of observables in generally invariant spacetime theories such as Einstein’s general relativity. Using the refined notion of an event as a “point-coincidence” between scalar fields that completely characterise a spacetime model, we propose a generalisation of the relational local observables that does not require the existence of four everywhere invertible scalar fields. The collection of all point-coincidences forms in generic situations a four-dimensional manifold, that is naturally identified with the physical spacetime.
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  • The Hole Argument.John D. Norton - 1988 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988:56 - 64.
    I give an informal outline of the hole argument which shows that spacetime substantivalism leads to an undesirable indeterminism in a broad class of spacetime theories. This form of the argument depends on the selection of differentiable manifolds within a spacetime theory as representing spacetime. I consider the conditions under which the argument can be extended to address versions of spacetime substantivalism which select these differentiable manifolds plus some further structure to represent spacetime. Finally, I respond to the criticisms of (...)
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  • Dispositions and the principle of least action.J. Katzav - 2004 - Analysis 64 (3):206-214.
    My aim is to argue for the incompatibility of one of the central principles of physics, namely the principle of least action (PLA), with the increasingly popular view that the world is, ultimately, merely something like a con- glomerate of objects and irreducible dispositions. First, I argue that the essentialist implications many suppose this view has are not compatible with the PLA. Second, I argue that, irrespective of whether this view has any essentialist implications, it is not compatible with the (...)
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  • Simplicity As Evidence of Truth.Richard Swinburne - 1997 - Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
    Content Description #"Under the auspices of the Wisconsin-Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Tau."#Includes bibliographical references.
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  • Critical notice.Jeremy Butterfield - 2002 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53 (2):289-330.
    This review of Julian Barbour's The End of Time ([1999]) discusses his Machian theories of dynamics, and his proposal that a Machian perspective enables one to solve the problem of time in quantum geometrodynamics, viz. by saying that there is no time! 1 Introduction 2 Machian themes in classical physics 2.1 The status quo 2.2 Machianism 2.2.1 The temporal metric as emergent 2.2.2 Machian theories 2.2.3 Assessing intrinsic dynamics 3 The end of time? 3.1 Time unreal? The classical case 3.1.1 (...)
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  • What can geometry explain?Graham Nerlich - 1979 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 30 (1):69-83.
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  • (1 other version)A Confutation of Convergent Realism.Larry Laudan - 2001 - In Yuri Balashov & Alexander Rosenberg (eds.), Philosophy of Science: Contemporary Readings. New York: Routledge. pp. 211.
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