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  1. Realism, underdetermination and string theory dualities.Keizo Matsubara - 2013 - Synthese 190 (3):471-489.
    String theory promises to be able to provide us with a working theory of quantum gravity and a unified description of all fundamental forces. In string theory there are so called ‘dualities’; i.e. different theoretical formulations that are physically equivalent. In this article these dualities are investigated from a philosophical point of view. Semantic and epistemic questions relating to the problem of underdetermination of theories by data and the debate on realism concerning scientific theories are discussed. Depending on ones views (...)
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  • `Nature is the Realisation of the Simplest Conceivable Mathematical Ideas': Einstein and the Canon of Mathematical Simplicity.John D. Norton - 2000 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 31 (2):135-170.
    Einstein proclaimed that we could discover true laws of nature by seeking those with the simplest mathematical formulation. He came to this viewpoint later in his life. In his early years and work he was quite hostile to this idea. Einstein did not develop his later Platonism from a priori reasoning or aesthetic considerations. He learned the canon of mathematical simplicity from his own experiences in the discovery of new theories, most importantly, his discovery of general relativity. Through his neglect (...)
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  • Cosmological Realism.David Merritt - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 88 (C):193-208.
    I discuss the relevance of the current predicament in cosmology to the debate over scientific realism. I argue that the existence of two, empirically successful but ontologically inconsistent cosmological theories presents difficulties for the realist position.
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  • The heuristic function of duality.Sebastian Haro - 2019 - Synthese 196 (12):5169-5203.
    I conceptualise the role of dualities in quantum gravity, in terms of their functions for theory construction. I distinguish between two functions of duality in physical practice: namely, discovering and describing ‘equivalent physics’, versus suggesting ‘new physics’. I dub these the ‘theoretical’ versus the ‘heuristic’ functions of dualities. The distinction seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the philosophical literature: and it exists both for dualities, and for the more general relation of theoretical equivalence. The paper develops the heuristic function (...)
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  • On symmetry and duality.Sebastian De Haro & Jeremy Butterfield - 2021 - Synthese 198 (4):2973-3013.
    We advocate an account of dualities between physical theories: the basic idea is that dual theories are isomorphic representations of a common core. We defend and illustrate this account, which we call a Schema, in relation to symmetries. Overall, the account meshes well with standard treatments of symmetries. But the distinction between the common core and the dual theories prompts a distinction between three kinds of symmetry: which we call ‘stipulated’, ‘accidental’ and ‘proper’.
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  • (4 other versions)Virtue Epistemology.John Turri, Mark Alfano & John Greco - 1999 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:1-51.
    Contemporary virtue epistemology (hereafter ‘VE’) is a diverse collection of approaches to epistemology. At least two central tendencies are discernible among the approaches. First, they view epistemology as a normative discipline. Second, they view intellectual agents and communities as the primary focus of epistemic evaluation, with a focus on the intellectual virtues and vices embodied in and expressed by these agents and communities. -/- This entry introduces many of the most important results of the contemporary VE research program. These include (...)
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  • How Dark Matter Came to Matter.Jaco de Swart, Gianfranco Bertone & Jeroen van Dongen - 2017 - Nature Astronomy 1 (3):59.
    The history of the dark matter problem can be traced back to at least the 1930s, but it was not until the early 1970s that the issue of ‘missing matter’ was widely recognized as problematic. In the latter period, previously separate issues involving missing mass were brought together in a single anomaly. We argue that reference to a straightforward accumulation of evidence alone is inadequate to comprehend this episode. Rather, the rise of cosmological research, the accompanying renewed interest in the (...)
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  • Cosmology and convention.David Merritt - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 57:41-52.
    I argue that some important elements of the current cosmological model are 'conventionalist’ in the sense defined by Karl Popper. These elements include dark matter and dark energy; both are auxiliary hypotheses that were invoked in response to observations that falsified the standard model as it existed at the time.
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  • Duality and ‘particle’ democracy.Elena Castellani - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 59:100-108.
    Weak/strong duality is usually accompanied by what seems a puzzling ontological feature: the fact that under this kind of duality what is viewed as 'elementary' in one description gets mapped to what is viewed as 'composite' in the dual description. This paper investigates the meaning of this apparent 'particle democracy', as it has been called, by adopting an historical approach. The aim is to clarify the nature of the correspondence between 'dual particles' in the light of an historical analysis of (...)
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  • On black hole complementarity.Jeroen van Dongen & Sebastian de Haro - 2004 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35 (3):509-525.
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  • Pierre Duhem’s virtue epistemology.David J. Stump - 2007 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 38 (1):149-159.
    Duhem’s concept of “good sense” is central to his philosophy of science, given that it is what allows scientist to decide between competing theories. Scientists must use good sense and have intellectual and moral virtues in order to be neutral arbiters of scientific theories, especially when choosing between empirically adequate theories. I discuss the parallels in Duhem’s views to those of virtue epistemologists, who understand justified belief as that arrived at by a cognitive agent with intellectual and moral virtues, showing (...)
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  • The No Alternatives Argument.Richard Dawid, Stephan Hartmann & Jan Sprenger - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (1):213-234.
    Scientific theories are hard to find, and once scientists have found a theory, H, they often believe that there are not many distinct alternatives to H. But is this belief justified? What should scientists believe about the number of alternatives to H, and how should they change these beliefs in the light of new evidence? These are some of the questions that we will address in this article. We also ask under which conditions failure to find an alternative to H (...)
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  • AdS/CFT duality and the emergence of spacetime.Dean Rickles - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 44 (3):312-320.
    The AdS/CFT duality has been a source of several strong conceptual claims in the physics literature that have yet to be explored by philosophers. In this paper I focus on one of these: the extent to which spacetime geometry and locality can be said to emerge from this duality, so that neither is fundamental. I argue: that the kind of emergence in question is relatively weak, involving one kind of spacetime emerging from another kind of spacetime; inasmuch as there is (...)
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  • Einstein, Kant, and the Origins of Logical Empiricism.Don Howard - unknown
    more on the history of the Vienna Circle and its allies, see Coffa 1991; Friedman 1983; Hailer 1982, 1985; Kraft 1950; and Proust 1986, 1989). Without question, however, the crucial, formative, early intellectual experience of at least Schlick, Reichenbach, and Carnap, the experience that did most to give form and content to their emergent philosophies of science, was their engagement with relativity theory. Thus, after a few early writings on more general philosophical themes, Schlick first caught the attention of a (...)
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  • Einstein’s Methodology, Semivectors and the Unification of Electrons and Protons.Jeroen van Dongen - 2004 - Archive for History of Exact Sciences 58 (3):219-254.
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  • Conceptual analysis of black hole entropy in string theory.Sebastian De Haro, Jeroen van Dongen, Manus Visser & Jeremy Butterfield - forthcoming - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics.
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  • Emergence and correspondence for string theory black holes.Jeroen van Dongen, Sebastian De Haro, Manus Visser & Jeremy Butterfield - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 69:112-127.
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  • Duality, Fundamentality, and Emergence.Elena Castellani & Sebastian De Haro - unknown
    We argue that dualities offer new possibilities for relating fundamentality, levels, and emergence. Namely, dualities often relate two theories whose hierarchies of levels are inverted relative to each other, and so allow for new fundamentality relations, as well as for epistemic emergence. We find that the direction of emergence typically found in these cases is opposite to the direction of emergence followed in the standard accounts. Namely, the standard emergence direction is that of decreasing fundamentality: there is emergence of less (...)
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  • (1 other version)Testability and epistemic shifts in modern cosmology.Helge Kragh - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 46:48-56.
    During the last decade new developments in theoretical and speculative cosmology have reopened the old discussion of cosmology’s scientific status and the more general question of the demarcation between science and non-science. The multiverse hypothesis, in particular, is central to this discussion and controversial because it seems to disagree with methodological and epistemic standards traditionally accepted in the physical sciences. But what are these standards and how sacrosanct are they? Does anthropic multiverse cosmology rest on evaluation criteria that conflict with (...)
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  • (1 other version)Testability and epistemic shifts in modern cosmology.Helge Kragh - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 46 (1):48-56.
    During the last decade new developments in theoretical and speculative cosmology have reopened the old discussion of cosmology's scientific status and the more general question of the demarcation between science and non-science. The multiverse hypothesis, in particular, is central to this discussion and controversial because it seems to disagree with methodological and epistemic standards traditionally accepted in the physical sciences. But what are these standards and how sacrosanct are they? Does anthropic multiverse cosmology rest on evaluation criteria that conflict with (...)
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  • The Interpretation of String-Theoretic Dualities.James Read - 2016 - Foundations of Physics 46 (2):209-235.
    We analyse the possibility that string-theoretic dualities present a genuine case of strong underdetermination of theory by evidence. Drawing on the parallel discussion of the hole argument, we assess the possible interpretations of dualities. We conclude that there exist at least two defensible interpretations on which dualities do not present a worrying case of underdetermination per se.
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  • The moral economy of science.Lorraine Daston - 1995 - Osiris 10:3--24.
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  • (1 other version)The heuristic function of duality.Sebastian De Haro - 2019 - Synthese 196 (12):5169-5203.
    I conceptualise the role of dualities in quantum gravity, in terms of their functions for theory construction. I distinguish between two functions of duality in physical practice: namely, discovering and describing ‘equivalent physics’, versus suggesting ‘new physics’. I dub these the ‘theoretical’ versus the ‘heuristic’ functions of dualities. The distinction seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the philosophical literature: and it exists both for dualities, and for the more general relation of theoretical equivalence. The paper develops the heuristic function (...)
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  • Scientific Methodology: A View from Early String Theory.Elena Castellani - unknown
    This paper addresses the question as to whether the methodology followed in building/assessing string theory can be considered scientific in the same sense, say, that the methodology followed in building/assessing the Standard Model of particle physics is scientific, by focussing on the "founding" period of the theory. More precisely, its aim is to argue for a positive answer to the above question – there is no real change of scientific status in the way of proceeding and reasoning in fundamental physical (...)
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  • Contested Boundaries: The String Theory Debates and Ideologies of Science.Sophie Ritson & Kristian Camilleri - 2015 - Perspectives on Science 23 (2):192-227.
    . Over the last three decades, physicists have engaged in, sometimes heated, debates about relative merits and prospects of string theory as a viable research program and even about its status as a science. The aim of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of this controversy as a particular form of boundary discourse. Drawing on the sociological work of Thomas Gieryn and Lawrence Prelli, we bring to light the way in which protagonists appeal to, and rhetorically construct, different (...)
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  • Genius, Method, and Morality: Images of Newton in Britain, 1760–1860.Richard Yeo - 1988 - Science in Context 2 (2):257-284.
    The ArgumentFocusing on the celebrations of Newton and his work, this article investigates the use of the concept of genius and its connection with debates on the methodology of science and the morality of great discoverers. During the period studied, two areas of tension developed. Firstly, eighteenth-century ideas about the relationship between genius and method were challenged by the notion of scientific genius as transcending specifiable rules of method. Secondly, assumptions about the nexus between intellectual and moral virtue were threatened (...)
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  • Centralized Funding and Epistemic Exploration.Shahar Avin - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science:axx059.
    Computer simulation of an epistemic landscape model, modified to include explicit representation of a centralized funding body, show the method of funding allocation has significant effects on communal trade-off between exploration and exploitation, with consequences for the community’s ability to generate significant truths. The results show this effect is contextual, and depends on the size of the landscape being explored, with funding that includes explicit random allocation performing significantly better than peer-review on large landscapes. The paper proposes a way of (...)
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  • Helmholtz and Kant: The Metaphysical Foundations of "Über die Erhaltung der Kraft".P. M. Heimann - 1974 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 5 (3):205.
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  • Was Sir William Crookes epistemically virtuous?Ian James Kidd - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 48:67-74.
    The aim of this paper is to use Sir William Crookes‘ researches into psychical phenomena as a sustained case study of the role of epistemic virtues within scientific enquiry. Despite growing interest in virtues in science, there are few integrated historical and philosophical studies, and even fewer studies focusing on controversial or ‗fringe‘ sciences where, one might suppose, certain epistemic virtues (like open-mindedness and tolerance) may be subjected to sterner tests. Using the virtue of epistemic courage as my focus, it (...)
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  • A history of entanglement: Decoherence and the interpretation problem.Kristian Camilleri - 2009 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (4):290-302.
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  • Underdetermination and Theory Succession from the Perspective of String Theory.Richard Dawid - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (3):298-322.
    This article investigates the implications of string theory for the conception of scientific theory confirmation. The classical understanding of theory confirmation is based on the assumption that scientific theory building is underdetermined by the available empirical data. Several arguments are presented, which suggest a devaluation of this ‘principle of scientific underdetermination’ in the context of string theory. An altered conception of scientific progress emerges that is not based on the notion of theory succession.
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  • Emergence in holographic scenarios for gravity.Dennis Dieks, Jeroen van Dongen & Sebastian de Haro - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 52 (Part B):203-216.
    'Holographic' relations between theories have become a main theme in quantum gravity research. These relations entail that a theory without gravity is equivalent to a gravitational theory with an extra spatial dimension. The idea of holography was first proposed in 1993 by Gerard 't Hooft on the basis of his studies of evaporating black holes. Soon afterwards the holographic 'AdS/CFT' duality was introduced, which since has been heavily studied in the string theory community and beyond. Recently, Erik Verlinde has proposed (...)
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  • A philosopher looks at string dualities.Dean Rickles - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 42 (1):54-67.
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  • Introduction: Scientific Personae and Their Histories.Lorraine Daston & H. Otto Sibum - 2003 - Science in Context 16 (1-2):1-8.
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  • Comparing dualities and gauge symmetries.Sebastian De Haro, Nicholas Teh & Jeremy N. Butterfield - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 59:68-80.
    We discuss some aspects of the relation between dualities and gauge symmetries. Both of these ideas are of course multi-faceted, and we confine ourselves to making two points. Both points are about dualities in string theory, and both have the ‘flavour’ that two dual theories are ‘closer in content’ than you might think. For both points, we adopt a simple conception of a duality as an ‘isomorphism’ between theories: more precisely, as appropriate bijections between the two theories’ sets of states (...)
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  • Centralized Funding and Epistemic Exploration.Shahar Avin - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (3):629-656.
    Computer simulation of an epistemic landscape model, modified to include explicit representation of a centralized funding body, show the method of funding allocation has significant effects on communal trade-off between exploration and exploitation, with consequences for the community’s ability to generate significant truths. The results show this effect is contextual, and depends on the size of the landscape being explored, with funding that includes explicit random allocation performing significantly better than peer review on large landscapes. The article proposes a way (...)
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  • Contemporary History of Cosmology and the Controversy over the Multiverse.Helge Kragh - 2009 - Annals of Science 66 (4):529-551.
    Summary Cosmology has always been different from other areas of the natural sciences. Although an observationally supported standard model of the universe emerged in the 1960s, more speculative models and conceptions continued to attract attention. During the last decade, ideas of multiple universes (the ‘multiverse’) based on anthropic reasoning have become very popular among cosmologists and theoretical physicists. This had led to a major debate within the scientific community of the epistemic standards of modern cosmology. Is the multiverse a scientific (...)
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  • Virtue ethics and the historiography of science.”.Thomas Söderqvist - 1997 - Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 32 (1):45-64.
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  • Einstein and Relativity: What Price Fame?David E. Rowe - 2012 - Science in Context 25 (2):197-246.
    ArgumentEinstein's initial fame came in late 1919 with a dramatic breakthrough in his general theory of relativity. Through a remarkable confluence of events and circumstances, the mass media soon projected an image of the photogenic physicist as a bold new revolutionary thinker. With his theory of relativity Einstein had overthrown outworn ideas about space and time dating back to Newton's day, no small feat. While downplaying his reputation as a revolutionary, Einstein proved he was well cast for the role of (...)
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  • Field equations in teleparallel space–time: Einstein’s Fernparallelismus approach toward unified field theory.Tilman Sauer - 2006 - Historia Mathematica 33 (4):399–439.
    This contribution gives an overview of Einstein's work on unified field theory. It characterizes this work from four perspectives, by looking at its conceptual, representational, biographical, and philosophical dimensions.
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  • The Virtues of Scientific Practice: MacIntyre, Virtue Ethics, and the Historiography of Science.Daniel J. Hicks & Thomas A. Stapleford - 2016 - Isis 107 (3):499-72.
    “Practice” has become a ubiquitous term in the history of science, and yet historians have not always reflected on its philosophical import and especially on its potential connections with ethics. In this essay, we draw on the work of the virtue ethicist Alasdair MacIntyre to develop a theory of “communal practices” and explore how such an approach can inform the history of science, including allegations about the corruption of science by wealth or power; consideration of scientific ethics or “moral economies”; (...)
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  • (1 other version)The heuristic function of duality.Sebastian De Haro - 2018 - Synthese:1-35.
    I conceptualise the role of dualities in quantum gravity, in terms of their functions for theory construction. I distinguish between two functions of duality in physical practice: namely, discovering and describing ‘equivalent physics’, versus suggesting ‘new physics’. I dub these the ‘theoretical’ versus the ‘heuristic’ functions of dualities. The distinction seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the philosophical literature: and it exists both for dualities, and for the more general relation of theoretical equivalence. The paper develops the heuristic function (...)
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  • No alternative to proliferation.Daniele Oriti - unknown
    We reflect on the nature, role and limits of non-empirical theory assessment in fundamental physics, focusing in particular on quantum gravity. We argue for the usefulness and, to some extent, necessity of non-empirical theory assessment, but also examine critically its dangers. We conclude that the principle of proliferation of theories is not only at the very root of theory assessment but all the more necessary when experimental tests are scarce, and also that, in the same situation, it represents the only (...)
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  • The Epistemic Virtues of the Virtuous Theorist: On Albert Einstein and His Autobiography.Jeroen van Dongen - 2017 - In Herman Paul & Jeroen van Dongen (eds.), Epistemic Virtues in the Sciences and the Humanities. Springer Verlag. pp. 63-77.
    Albert Einstein’s practice in physics and his philosophical positions gradually reoriented themselves from more empiricist towards rationalist viewpoints. This change accompanied his turn towards unified field theory and different presentations of himself, eventually leading to his highly programmatic Autobiographical Notes in 1949. Einstein enlisted his own history and professional stature to mold an ideal of a theoretical physicist who represented particular epistemic virtues and moral qualities. These in turn reflected the theoretical ideas of his strongly mathematical unification program and professed (...)
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