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20Karel Lambert and Gordon G. Brittan Jr. An introduction to the philosophy of science. Second, revised and expanded edition. Ridgeview Publishing Company, Reseda, Calif., 1979, x + 164 pp (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 47 (2): 476-477. 1982.
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117Algebraic constraints on hidden variablesFoundations of Physics 8 (7-8): 629-636. 1978.In the contemporary discussion of hidden variable interpretations of quantum mechanics, much attention has been paid to the “no hidden variable” proof contained in an important paper of Kochen and Specker. It is a little noticed fact that Bell published a proof of the same result the preceding year, in his well-known 1966 article, where it is modestly described as a corollary to Gleason's theorem. We want to bring out the great simplicity of Bell's formulation of this result and to show how it c…Read more
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Fictions, Fictionalization and Truth in ScienceIn Mauricio Suárez (ed.), Fictions in Science: Philosophical Essays on Modeling and Idealization, Routledge. pp. 235--247. 2008.
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34Ronald Yoshida's Reduction in the Physical SciencesReduction in the Physical SciencesNoûs 14 (1): 136. 1980.
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30Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach. Ronald N. Giere (review)Philosophy of Science 57 (4): 729-731. 1990.
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42The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism, and the Quantum Theory. Arthur Fine (review)Philosophy of Science 55 (1): 155-156. 1988.
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148Referential and Perspectival RealismSpontaneous Generations 9 (1): 151-164. 2018.Ronald Giere has argued that at its best science gives us knowledge only from different “perspectives,” but that this knowledge still counts as scientific realism. Others have noted that his “perspectival realism” is in tension with scientific realism as traditionally understood: How can different, even conflicting, perspectives give us what there is really? This essay outlines a program that makes good on Giere’s idea with a fresh understanding of “realism” that eases this tension.
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An Interpretative Introduction to Quantum Field TheoryBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (1): 152-153. 1996.
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27Robots, Action, and the “Essential Indexical”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (3): 763-771. 2011.
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123Relational Holism and Quantum Mechanics1British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (1): 71-81. 1986.One can give a strong sense to the idea that a relation does not 'reduce' to non-relational properties by saying that a relation does not supervene upon the non-relational properties of its relata. That there are such inherent relations I call the doctrine of relational holism, a doctrine which seems to conflict with traditional ideas about physicalism. At least parts of classical physics seem to be free of relational holism, but quantum mechanics, on at least some interpretations, incorporates …Read more
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12Some Discussion and Extension of Manfred Bierwisch's Work on German AdjectivalsFoundations of Language 5 (2): 185-217. 1969.
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7Review: Karel Lambert, Gordon G. Brittan, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 47 (2): 476-477. 1982.
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5Comments on Niiniluoto and UchiiPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1976. 1976.
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50
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322Goodman's theory of projectionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 20 (3): 219-238. 1969.
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1Subjectivity and knowing what it's likeIn Ansgar Beckermann, Hans Flohr & Jaegwon Kim (eds.), Emergence or Reduction?: Prospects for Nonreductive Physicalism, De Gruyter. 1992.
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1A contemporary look at emergenceIn Ansgar Beckermann, Hans Flohr & Jaegwon Kim (eds.), Emergence or Reduction?: Prospects for Nonreductive Physicalism, De Gruyter. 1992.
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100An Interpretive Introduction to Quantum Field TheoryPrinceton University Press. 1995.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 s…Read more
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27Concepts of Science: A Philosophical Analysis (review)Philosophical Review 82 (1): 110-114. 1973.
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105Prolegomenon to a proper interpretation of quantum field theoryPhilosophy of Science 57 (4): 594-618. 1990.This paper digests technical commonplaces of quantum field theory to present an informal interpretation of the theory by emphasizing its connections with the harmonic oscillator. The resulting "harmonic oscillator interpretation" enables newcomers to the subject to get some intuitive feel for the theory. The interpretation clarifies how the theory relates to observation and to quantum mechanical problems connected with observation. Finally the interpretation moves some way towards helping us see…Read more
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73Measurement Accuracy RealismIn The Experimental Side of Modeling,, University of Minnesota Press. pp. 273-298. 2018.This paper challenges “traditional measurement-accuracy realism”, according to which there are in nature quantities of which concrete systems have definite values. An accurate measurement outcome is one that is close to the value for the quantity measured. For a measurement of the temperature of some water to be accurate in this sense requires that there be this temperature. But there isn’t. Not because there are no quantities “out there in nature” but because the term ‘the temperature of this w…Read more
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54The projection postulate as a fortuitous approximationPhilosophy of Science 50 (3): 413-431. 1983.If we take the state function of quantum mechanics to describe belief states, arguments by Stairs and Friedman-Putnam show that the projection postulate may be justified as a kind of minimal change. But if the state function takes on a physical interpretation, it provides no more than what I call a fortuitous approximation of physical measurement processes, that is, an unsystematic form of approximation which should not be taken to correspond to some one univocal "measurement process" in nature.…Read more
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48Fact and Method: Explanation, Confirmation, and Reality in the Natural and the Social SciencesPhilosophical Review 99 (4): 641. 1990.
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39A Poor man's Guide to Supervenience and Determination 1Southern Journal of Philosophy 22 (S1): 137-162. 1984.I hope to show that supervenience and determination, as I have here intuitively characterized them, are really different expressions of the same core idea which one may make more precise in a great number of different ways, depending on the interpretation one puts on the catchall parameters “cases”, “truth of kind P”and “truth of kind S”.
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6Space-time as a physical quantityIn P. Achinstein & R. Kagon (eds.), Kelvin’s Baltimore Lectures and Modern Theoretical Physics, Mit Press. pp. 425--448. 1987.