-
604What price spacetime substantivalism? The hole storyBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (4): 515-525. 1987.Spacetime substantivalism leads to a radical form of indeterminism within a very broad class of spacetime theories which include our best spacetime theory, general relativity. Extending an argument from Einstein, we show that spacetime substantivalists are committed to very many more distinct physical states than these theories' equations can determine, even with the most extensive boundary conditions
-
119Fulling non‐uniqueness and the Unruh effectPhilosophy of Science 70 (1): 164-202. 2003.We discuss the intertwined topics of Fulling non-uniqueness and the Unruh effect. The Fulling quantization, which is in some sense the natural one for an observer uniformly accelerated through Minkowski spacetime to adopt, is often heralded as a quantization of the Klein-Gordon field which is both physically relevant and unitarily inequivalent to the standard Minkowski quantization. We argue that the Fulling and Minkowski quantizations do not constitute a satisfactory example of physically relev…Read more
-
30Remarks on Relational Theories of MotionCanadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (1). 1989.In a recent article in this journal, Barbara Lariviere offers a very useful distinction between two ways of understanding the claims that Leibniz, or relational theorists in general, might wish to make about the nature of motion and the structure of space and time; viz., There is no real inertial structure to space-time.and There is a real inertial structure to space-time, but it is dynamical rather than absolute.Citing the authority of Weyl, the author argues that L1 is untenable; indeed, the a…Read more
-
159The Sap Also Rises: A Critical Examination of the Anthropic PrincipleAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 24 (4). 1987.
-
53Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External World (edited book)University of Pittsburgh Press. 1993.Now, considering the determinism or indeterminism of the world, ... The question of free will, and the mind-body problem, are two that come to mind. ...
-
79Bangs, Crunches, Whimpers, and Shrieks: Singularities and Acausalities in Relativistic SpacetimesOxford University Press. 1995.Indeed, this is the first serious book-length study of the subject by a philosopher of science.
-
43Recent years have seen a growing consensus in the philosophical community that the grandfather paradox and similar logical puzzles do not preclude the possibility of time travel scenarios that utilize spacetimes containing closed timelike curves. At the same time, physicists, who for half a century acknowledged that the general theory of relativity is compatible with such spacetimes, have intensely studied the question whether the operation of a time machine would be admissible in the context of…Read more
-
210Exorcist XIV: The Wrath of Maxwell’s Demon. Part I. From Maxwell to SzilardStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 29 (4): 435-471. 1998.In this first part of a two-part paper, we describe efforts in the early decades of this century to restrict the extent of violations of the Second Law of thermodynamics that were brought to light by the rise of the kinetic theory and the identification of fluctuation phenomena. We show how these efforts mutated into Szilard’s proposal that Maxwell’s Demon is exorcised by proper attention to the entropy costs associated with the Demon’s memory and information acquisition. In the second part we w…Read more
-
52World enough and space‐time: Absolute versus relational theories of space and timePhilosophical Review 101 (3): 723. 1989.
-
67Old Evidence, New Theories: Two Unresolved Problems in Bayesian Confirmation TheoryPacific Philosophical Quarterly 70 (4): 323-340. 1989.
-
130Two Challenges to the Requirement of Substantive General CovarianceSynthese 148 (2): 443-468. 2006.It is generally acknowledged that the requirement that the laws of a spacetime theory be covariant under a general coordinate transformation is a restriction on the form but not the content of the theory. The prevalent view in the physics community holds that the substantive version of general covariance – exhibited, for example, by Einstein’s general theory of relativity – consists in the requirement that diffeomorphism invariance is a gauge symmetry of the theory. This conception of general co…Read more
-
88Some Aspects of General Relativity and GeometrodynamicsJournal of Philosophy 69 (19): 634. 1972.
-
157Laws of Nature: The Empiricist ChallengeIn Radu J. Bogdan (ed.), Laws of Nature: The Empiricist Challenge, Springer Verlag. pp. 191-223. 1984.Hume defined ‘cause’ three times over. The two principal definitions (constant conjunction, felt determination) provide the anchors for the two main strands of the modem empiricist accounts of laws of nature 1 while the third (the counter factual definition 2) may be seen as the inspiration of the nonHumean necessitarian analyses. Corresponding to the felt determination definition is the account of laws that emphasizes human attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Latter day weavers of this strand incl…Read more
-
69The anisotropy of timeAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 47 (3). 1969.This Article does not have an abstract
-
451"Ceteris Paribus", There Is No Problem of ProvisosSynthese 118 (3). 1999.Much of the literature on "ceteris paribus" laws is based on a misguided egalitarianism about the sciences. For example, it is commonly held that the special sciences are riddled with ceteris paribus laws; from this many commentators conclude that if the special sciences are not to be accorded a second class status, it must be ceteris paribus all the way down to fundamental physics. We argue that the (purported) laws of fundamental physics are not hedged by ceteris paribus clauses and provisos. …Read more
-
64Infinite pains: the trouble with supertasksIn Adam Morton & Stephen P. Stich (eds.), Benacerraf and His Critics, Blackwell. pp. 11--271. 1996.
-
79From metaphysics to physicsIn Jeremy Butterfield & Constantine Pagonis (eds.), From Physics to Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 166--86. 1999.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.
-
1
-
62Carnap, Kuhn, and the Philosophy of Science MethodologyIn Paul Horwich (ed.), World Changes. Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science, Mit Press. pp. 9--36. 1993.
-
31World Enough and SpacetimeMIT press. 1989.Newton's Principia introduced conceptions of space and time that launched one of themost famous and sustained debates in the history of physics, a controversy that involves fundamentalconcerns in the foundations of physics, metaphysics, and scientific epistemology.This bookintroduces and clarifies the historical and philosophical development of the clash between Newton'sabsolute conception of space and Leibniz's relational one. It separates the issues and provides newperspectives on absolute rel…Read more
-
73Fairy tales vs an ongoing story: Ramsey's neglected argument for scientific realism (review)Philosophical Studies 33 (2). 1978.
-
149There is currently no viable alternative to the Bayesian analysis of scientific inference, yet the available versions of Bayesianism fail to do justice to several aspects of the testing and confirmation of scientific hypotheses. Bayes or Bust? provides the first balanced treatment of the complex set of issues involved in this nagging conundrum in the philosophy of science. Both Bayesians and anti-Bayesians will find a wealth of new insights on topics ranging from Bayes’s original paper to contem…Read more
-
40The Problem of IrreversibilityPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986. 1986.After reviewing recent literature from physics and philosophy, it is concluded that we are still far from having a satisfying explanation of the nature and origins of irreversibility. It is proposed that the most fruitful approach to this problem is to concentrate on conditions needed for a rigorous derivation of the Boltzmann equation.
-
74On Writing the History of Special RelativityPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1982. 1982.Nearly all accounts of the genesis of special relativity unhesitatingly assume that the theory was worked out in a roughly five week period following the discovery of the relativity of simultaneity. Not only is there no direct evidence for this common presupposition, there are numerous considerations which militate against it. The evidence suggests it is far more reasonable that Einstein was already in possession of the Lorentz and field transformations, that he had applied these to the dynamics…Read more
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Physical Science |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Physical Science |
General Philosophy of Science |