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9Causality in Physics: PresentationTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 15 (1): 5-10. 2000.This monograph section of Theoria is devoted to the notion of causation in modern physics. The four long essays and short epilogue contained in this volume constitute a representative sample of recent work by philosophers of physics on causality. All the contributions to this volume share a healthy respect for science, and what science may be able to tell us about causation: these essays look for a notion of causation that can make sense of modern physical science. And, as is the norm in contemp…Read more
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48Propensities in quantum mechanicsCentre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. 2006.I review five explicit attempts throughout the history of quantum mechanics to invoke dispositional notions in order to solve the quantum paradoxes, namely: Margenau’s latencies, Heisenberg’s potentialities, Popper’s propensity interpretation of probability, Nick Maxwell’s propensitons, and the recent selective propensities interpretation of quantum mechanics. I raise difficulties and challenges for all of them, but conclude that the selective propensities approach nicely encompasses the virtues…Read more
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33Review. Norton M Wise (ed). The values of precisionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (3): 483-486. 1996.
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22Mellor. 2005 Probability: A Philosophical IntroductionTheoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 26 (1): 99-103. 2011.
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100Varieties of misrepresentation and homomorphismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 6 (1): 71-90. 2016.This paper is a critical response to Andreas Bartels’ sophisticated defense of a structural account of scientific representation. We show that, contrary to Bartels’ claim, homomorphism fails to account for the phenomenon of misrepresentation. Bartels claims that homomorphism is adequate in two respects. First, it is conceptually adequate, in the sense that it shows how representation differs from misrepresentation and non-representation. Second, if properly weakened, homomorphism is formally ade…Read more
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72The semantic view, empirical adequacy, and applicationCritica 37 (109): 29-63. 2005.It is widely accepted in contemporary philosophy of science that the domain of application of a theory is typically larger than its explanatory covering power: theories can be applied to phenomena that they do not explain. I argue for an analogous thesis regarding the notion of empirical adequacy. A theory’s domain of application is typically larger than its domain of empirical adequacy: theories are often applied to phenomena from which they receive no empirical confirmation.
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Experimental realism reconsidered: How inference to the most likely cause might be soundIn Nancy Cartwright, Stephan Hartmann, Carl Hoefer & Luc Bovens (eds.), Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science, Routledge. pp. 137--63. 2008.
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154Scientific Realism, the Galilean Strategy, and RepresentationPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 101 (1): 269-292. 2009.This paper critically reviews Philip Kitcher's most recent epistemology of science, real realism . I argue that this view is unstable under different understandings of the term 'representation', and that the arguments offered for the position are either unsound or invalid depending on the understanding employed. Suitably modified those arguments are however convincing in favor of a deflationary version of real realism, which I refer to as the bare view . The bare view accepts Kitcher's Galilean …Read more
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40Review of R.I.G Hughes, The Theoretical Practices of Physics: Philosophical Essays (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (12). 2010.
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176Bohmian dispositionsSynthese 192 (10): 3203-3228. 2015.This paper argues for a broadly dispositionalist approach to the ontology of Bohmian mechanics . It first distinguishes the ‘minimal’ and the ‘causal’ versions of Bohm’s theory, and then briefly reviews some of the claims advanced on behalf of the ‘causal’ version by its proponents. A number of ontological or interpretive accounts of the wave function in BM are then addressed in detail, including configuration space, multi-field, nomological, and dispositional approaches. The main objection to e…Read more
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51Probability (review)Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 26 (1): 99-103. 2011.
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379Fictions, inference and realismIn John Woods (ed.), Fictions and Models: New Essays, Philosophia Verlag. 2010.Abstract: It is often assumed without argument that fictionalism in the philosophy of science contradicts scientific realism. This paper is a critical analysis of this assumption. The kind of fictionalism that is at present discussed in philosophy of science is characterised, and distinguished from fictionalism in other areas. A distinction is then drawn between forms of fictional representation, and two competing accounts of fiction in science are discussed. I then outline explicitly what I tak…Read more
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60Review. Quantum state diffusion. I PercivalBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (3): 527-530. 2000.
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25Hacking KuhnRevista de Filosofía (Madrid) 28 (2): 261-284. 2003.Thomas Kuhn’s work, particularly his famous book Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is often interpreted as a failed attempt to defend four radical thesis about science: epistemic pessimism, semantic relativism, methodological irrationalism and metaphysical idealism. In this paper I argue that such interpretation depends essentially on a false model of scientific knowledge, according to which the objects of scientific belief are always explanatory scientific theories, which are in turn empiric…Read more
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50Theories, models, and representationsIn L. Magnani, N. J. Nersessian & P. Thagard (eds.), Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery, Kluwer/plenum. pp. 75--83. 1999.I argue against an account of scientific representation suggested by the semantic, or structuralist, conception of scientific theories. Proponents of this conception often employ the term “model” to refer to bare “structures”, which naturally leads them to attempt to characterize the relation between models and reality as a purely structural one. I argue instead that scientific models are typically “representations”, in the pragmatist sense of the term: they are inherently intended for specific …Read more
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497Scientific representation: Against similarity and isomorphismInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 17 (3): 225-244. 2003.I argue against theories that attempt to reduce scientific representation to similarity or isomorphism. These reductive theories aim to radically naturalize the notion of representation, since they treat scientist's purposes and intentions as non-essential to representation. I distinguish between the means and the constituents of representation, and I argue that similarity and isomorphism are common but not universal means of representation. I then present four other arguments to show that simil…Read more
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145It is still a matter of controversy whether the Principle of the Common Cause (PCC) can be used as a basis for sound causal inference. It is thus to be expected that its application to quantum mechanics should be a correspondingly controversial issue. Indeed the early 90’s saw a flurry of papers addressing just this issue in connection with the EPR correlations. Yet, that debate does not seem to have caught up with the most recent literature on causal inference generally, which has moved on to c…Read more
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324Quantum propensitiesStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 38 (2): 418-438. 2007.This paper reviews four attempts throughout the history of quantum mechanics to explicitly employ dispositional notions in order to solve the quantum paradoxes, namely: Margenau's latencies, Heisenberg's potentialities, Maxwell's propensitons, and the recent selective propensities interpretation of quantum mechanics. Difficulties and challenges are raised for all of them, and it is concluded that the selective propensities approach nicely encompasses the virtues of its predecessors. Finally, som…Read more
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115On quantum propensities: Two arguments revisitedErkenntnis 61 (1): 1-16. 2004.Peter Milne and Neal Grossman have argued against Popper's propensity interpretation of quantum mechanics, by appeal to the two-slit experiment and to the distinction between mixtures and superpositions, respectively. In this paper I show that a different propensity interpretation successfully meets their objections. According to this interpretation, the possession of a quantum propensity by a quantum system is independent of the experimental set-ups designed to test it, even though its manifest…Read more
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London School of EconomicsDepartment of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific MethodAssociate Researcher
Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Areas of Specialization
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Areas of Interest
8 more