James Read

It is now well-appreciated by philosophers that contemporary large-scale ‘-omics’ studies in biology stand in non-trivial relationships to more orthodox hypothesis-driven approaches. These relationships have been clarified by Ratti (2015); however, there remains much more to be said regarding how an important field of genomics cited in that work—‘genome-wide association studies’ (GWAS)—fits into this framework. In the present article, we propose a revision to Ratti’s framework more suited to studies such as GWAS. In the process of doing so, we introduce to the philosophical literature novel exploratory experiments in (phospho)proteomics, and demonstrate how these experiments interplay with the above considerations.

What, if anything, would be wrong with replacing the light postulate in Einstein’s 1905 formulation of special relativity with a ‘sound postulate’, stating that the speed of sound is independent of the speed of the source? After reviewing the historical reasons underlying the particular focus on light in the special theory, we consider the circumstances under which such a theory of ‘sonic relativity’ would be justified on empirical grounds. We then consider the philosophical upshots of ‘sonic relativity’ for four contemporary areas of investigation in the philosophy of spacetime: global versus subsystem symmetries, dynamical versus geometrical approaches to spacetime, the possibility of a preferred frame in theories of quantum gravity, and spacetime functionalism.

Supposing that one is already familiar with special relativistic physics, what constitutes the best route via which to arrive at the architecture of the general theory of relativity? Although the later Einstein would stress the significance of mathematical and theoretical principles in answering this question, in this article we follow the lead of the earlier Einstein (circa 1916) and stress instead how one can go a long way to arriving at the general theory via inductive and empirical principles, without invoking presumptions concerning the geometrical structure of the final theory. We focus on the construction of the kinematical structure and the terms describing the coupling of matter to gravity. General covariance, understood and employed as a straightforward extrapolation of empirical considerations, is central to our derivation, together with what we dub the `Methodological Equivalence Principle'. We argue that our approach has a number of virtues, both for one's understanding of the general theory of relativity, but also for pedagogy, since it stresses---to the greatest extent possible (a lesson which we inherit from Bell, [1976])---both the methodological precedence of dynamical considerations to interpretative issues and the theoretical continuity between general relativity and its precursors. We conclude by comparing our approach to other philosophical approaches to general relativity and discussing the significance of empirically motivated methodological principles in the philosophy of science.

In a recent article, Halvorson and Manchak (Br J Philos Sci, Forthcoming) claim that there is no basis for the Hole Argument, because (in a certain sense) hole isometries are unique. This raises two important questions: (a) does their argument succeed?; (b) how does this formalist response to the Hole Argument relate to other recent responses to the Hole Argument in the same tradition—in particular, that of Weatherall (Br J Philos Sci 69(2):329–350, 2018)? In this article, _ad_ (a), we argue that Halvorson and Manchak’s claim does not go through; _ad_ (b), we argue that although one _prima facie_ plausible reading would see Halvorson and Manchak as filling an important hole (no pun intended) in Weatherall’s argument, in fact this reading is implausible; there is no need to supplement Weatherall’s work with Halvorson and Manchak’s results.

It is plausible that the models of our scientific theories correspond to possibilities. But exactly which models of which scientific theories stand in this correspondence? The answers to this question hinted at so far in the literature are too restrictive: they don't support the idea that the models of many of our best scientific theories correspond to physical possibilities. The paper thus provides a novel proposal for guiding belief about physical possibilities based on physics. The proposal draws on the notion of an effective theory: a theory that applies very well to a particular, restricted domain. We argue that it is the models of effective theories that we should believe correspond, at least in part, to physical possibilities. It is thus effective theories that should guide modal reasoning in science.

In a recent article in this journal, Sus purports to account for what have been identified as the ‘two miracles’ of general relativity—that (1) the local symmetries of all dynamical equations for matter fields coincide, and (2) the symmetries of the dynamical equations governing matter fields coincide locally with the symmetries of the metric field—by application of the familiar result that every symmetry of the action is also a symmetry of the resulting equations of motion. In this reply, we argue that, while otherwise exemplary in its clarity, Sus’ paper fails in this regard, for it rests upon a illegitimate application of the aforementioned result. Thus, we conclude, pace Sus, that these two miracles persist in general relativity.

Recent work in the physics literature demonstrates that, in particular classes of rotating spacetimes, physical light rays in general do not traverse null geodesics. Having presented this result, we discuss its philosophical significance, both for the clock hypothesis (and, in particular, a recent purported proof thereof for light clocks), and for the operational meaning of the metric field. 1Introduction 2Fletcher's Theorem 2.1Maudlin on the clock hypothesis in special relativity 2.2Fletcher’s result in special relativity 2.3Fletcher’s theorem in general relativity 3Electromagnetism and the Geometrical-Optical Limit 3.1Maxwell’s equations in curved spacetime 3.2The geometrical-optical limit 3.3Rotating spacetimes 3.4Aren’t Gödel spacetimes unphysical? 4The Clock Hypothesis and Chronogeometry 4.1Natural and mathematical observations 4.2Clock registry discord 4.3Chronogeometry 5Conclusion.

For Knox, ‘spacetime’ is to be defined functionally, as that which picks out a structure of local inertial frames. Assuming that Knox is motivated to construct this functional definition of spacetime on the grounds that it appears to identify that structure which plays the operational role of spacetime—i.e., that structure which is actually surveyed by physical rods and clocks built from matter fields—we identify in this paper important limitations of her approach: these limitations are based upon the fact that there is a gap between inertial frame structure and that which is operationally significant in the above sense. We present five concrete cases in which these two notions come apart, before considering various ways in which Knox’s spacetime functionalism might be amended in light of these issues.