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59Physics and the Humean approach to probabilityIn Claus Beisbart & Stephan Hartmann (eds.), Probabilities in Physics, Oxford University Press. pp. 321. 2011.
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79Einstein's struggle for a Machian gravitation theoryStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 25 (3): 287-335. 1994.The story of Einstein's struggle to create a general theory of relativity, and his early discontentment with the final form of the theory , is well known in broad outline. Thanks to the work of John Norton and others, much of the fine detail of the story is also now known. One aspect of Einstein's work in this period has, however, been relatively neglected: Einstein's commitment to Mach's ideas on inertia, and the influence this commitment had on Einstein's work on general relativity from 1907 t…Read more
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266Causality and determinism: Tension, or outright conflict?Revista de Filosofía (Madrid) 29 (2): 99-115. 2004.In the philosophical tradition, the notions of determinism and causality are strongly linked: it is assumed that in a world of deterministic laws, causality may be said to reign supreme; and in any world where the causality is strong enough, determinism must hold. I will show that these alleged linkages are based on mistakes, and in fact get things almost completely wrong. In a deterministic world that is anything like ours, there is no room for genuine causation. Though there may be stable enou…Read more
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207Kant's hands and Earman's pions: Chirality arguments for substantival spaceInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 14 (3). 2000.This paper outlines a new interpretation of an argument of Kant's for the existence of absolute space. The Kant argument, found in a 1768 essay on topology, argues for the existence of Newtonian-Euclidean absolute space on the basis of the existence of incongruous counterparts (such as a left and a right hand, or any asymmetrical object and its mirror-image). The clear, intrinsic difference between a left hand and a right hand, Kant claimed, cannot be understood on a relational view of space - f…Read more
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214Absolute versus relational spacetime: For better or worse, the debate goes onBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (3): 451-467. 1998.The traditional absolutist-relationist debate is still clearly formulable in the context of General Relativity Theory (GTR), despite the important differences between Einstein's theory and the earlier context of Newtonian physics. This paper answers recent arguments by Robert Rynasiewicz against the significance of the debate in the GTR context. In his (1996) (‘Absolute vs. Relational Spacetime: An Outmoded Debate?’), Rynasiewicz argues that already in the late nineteenth century, and even more …Read more
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385For fundamentalismPhilosophy of Science 70 (5): 1401--1412. 2003.In this paper I defend fundamental physical laws from the arguments mounted by Nancy Cartwright in her (1999) book The Dappled World (and other publications). I argue, positively, that we have a good deal of evidence for mathematical laws—not just causal capacities—underlying many natural phenomena. I also argue, negatively, that Cartwright's main arguments unfairly demand that a fundamentalist be a strong reductionist.
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58Calibration: Being in Tune with FrequenciesDialectica 66 (3): 435-452. 2012.Our beliefs can have, or fail to have, a significant epistemic virtue: they can be true. What about our partial beliefs – that is, credences or subjective probabilities? Is there an epistemic virtue that credences can have or fail to have, whose nature or role with respect to credences is analogous to the role that truth has with respect to full beliefs? Van Fraassen argued in the 1980s that there is indeed such an analog virtue, and he claimed that it is calibration: our credences should match,…Read more
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269Determinism and Chance from a Humean PerspectiveIn Friedrich Stadler, Dennis Dieks, Wenceslao González, Hartmann J., Uebel Stephan, Weber Thomas & Marcel (eds.), The Present Situation in the Philosophy of Science, Springer. pp. 351--72. 2010.On the face of it ‘deterministic chance’ is an oxymoron: either an event is chancy or deterministic, but not both. Nevertheless, the world is rife with events that seem to be exactly that: chancy and deterministic at once. Simple gambling devices like coins and dice are cases in point. On the one hand they are governed by deterministic laws – the laws of classical mechanics – and hence given the initial condition of, say, a coin toss it is determined whether it will land heads or tails.2 On the …Read more
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57Mach׳s principle as action-at-a-distance in GR: The causality questionStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 48 (2): 128-136. 2014.
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319Energy Conservation in GTRStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 31 (2): 187-199. 2000.The topics of gravitational field energy and energy-momentum conservation in General Relativity theory have been unjustly neglected by philosophers. If the gravitational field in space free of ordinary matter, as represented by the metric g ab itself, can be said to carry genuine energy and momentum, this is a powerful argument for adopting the substantivalist view of spacetime.This paper explores the standard textbook account of gravitational field energy and argues that (a) so-called stress-en…Read more
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69Review of Robert DiSalle, Understanding Space-Time: The Philosophical Development of Physics From Newton to Einstein (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (9). 2008.
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465Freedom from the Inside OutRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 50 201-. 2002.Since the death of strong reductionism, philosophers of science have expanded the horizons of their understandings of the physical, mental, and social worlds, and the complex relations among them. To give one interesting example, John Dupre has endorsed a notion of downward causation: ‘higher-level’ events causing events at a ‘lower’ ontological level. For example, my intention to type the letter ‘t’ causes the particular motions experienced by all the atoms in my left forefinger as I type it. T…Read more
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933Probability in GRW theoryStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 38 (2): 371-389. 2007.GRW Theory postulates a stochastic mechanism assuring that every so often the wave function of a quantum system is `hit', which leaves it in a localised state. How are we to interpret the probabilities built into this mechanism? GRW theory is a firmly realist proposal and it is therefore clear that these probabilities are objective probabilities (i.e. chances). A discussion of the major theories of chance leads us to the conclusion that GRW probabilities can be understood only as either single c…Read more
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Universitat de BarcelonaICREA Research Professor
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Barcelona, Spain
Areas of Specialization
1 more
Laws of Nature |
Causation |
Theories of Causation |
Causation, Miscellaneous |
Chance and Objective Probability |
Dispositions and Powers |