Silvia Bianchi

This book offers a clear account of timelessness together with the discussion of temporality in fundamental physics and cosmology. The multi-disciplinary approach to the problem of time and timelessness shows the remarkable difference between pre-relativistic debates and current developments. This book thoroughly discusses notions of timelessness and time emerging in the most recent literature on Quantum Gravity, String Theory and Cosmology. The contributions explore, among many aspects, the historical-philosophical roots of the notions of temporality and atemporality, the role of mathematics in defining time and temporality with respect to both order relations and causality, approaches to quantum gravity and cosmology that make use of quantum fluids and condensate to approximate space–time in general relativity, time and timelessness in black holes and the problem of cosmological time in bouncing cosmologies. The novelty of this volume lies in the interaction among scientists, philosophers, and historians in exploring the nature of time and timelessness and the origin of these concepts. The book represents a valuable toolkit for researchers and graduate students in physics, cosmology, philosophy and the history of those fields.

In this Chapter, the concept of time is analyzed in a particular set of solutions of Einstein Field Equations that was proposed by Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) in 1949 and 1952. The rotating universe model has been largely inspired by Gödel’s reading of Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) in which Kant provided an argument for the relativity of motion of reference frames and for the rejection of absolute time in cosmology. After presenting Gödel’s analysis of Kant’s notion of time in his manuscripts, I shall show which aspects of Kant’s philosophy had an impact on Gödel’s view. Finally, I shall conclude by showing that Gödel’s critical reading of Kant’s theory knowledge did not take into account his late work and therefore could not comment on core ideas of Kant’s late cosmology embodied by the dictum ‘forma dat esse rei.’ Indeed, in the Opus postumum Kant appealed to the concept of cosmic aether as hypostatized space and provided an argument for distinguishing the notion of cosmic local time, which is necessary for the description of the observable universe, from an a priori account of the cosmos as a whole.

In analyzing the problem of space from 1917 to 1923, Hermann Weyl confronted with the philosophical underpinnings of the theories of space. Weyl endorsed the distinction between the question of the essence of space and the question of its objective representation, a distinction that many philosophers, such as Ernst Cassirer, inherited from Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. However, Weyl aimed to offer a reliable alternative to Kant’s transcendental idealism of space and time, by means of mathematics and symbolic construction. The consequences of this move will be analyzed in Weyl’s reflection on the epistemology of science after the 1920s and in his late works, with emphasis on his “Why is the World Four-Dimensional?” (1955): a signature of the fact that the problem of space had open questions that engaged the mathematical physicist throughout his entire life.

Recent results have shown that singularities can be avoided from the general relativistic standpoint in Lorentzian-Euclidean black holes by means of the transition from a Lorentzian to an Euclidean region where time loses its physical meaning and becomes imaginary. This dynamical mechanism, dubbed “atemporality”, prevents the emergence of black hole singularities and the violation of conservation laws. In this paper, the notion of atemporality together with a detailed discussion of its implications is presented from a philosophical perspective. The main result consists in showing that atemporality is naturally related to conservation laws.

In conceptual debates involving the quantum gravity community, the literature discusses the so-called “emergence of space–time”. However, which interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM) could be coherent with such claim? We show that a modification of the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM is compatible with the claim that space–time is emergent for the macroscopic world of measurements. In other words, pure quantum states do not admit space–time properties until we measure them. We call this approach “Achronotopic” (ACT) Interpretation of QM, which yields a simple and natural interpretation of the most puzzling aspects of QM, such as particle-wave duality, wave function collapse, entanglement, and quantum superposition. Our interpretation yields the same results in all measurements as the Copenhagen Interpretation, but provides clues toward the sub-Planckian physics. In particular, it suggests the non-existence of quantum gravity in the conventional sense understood as the quantization of a classical theory.

a relação entre razão e natureza envolve um dos principais aspectos da crítica da teleologia de Kant. Visando destacar esta relação, investigarei o conceito de técnica da natureza, tal como introduzida na Crítica da faculdade de julgar. De acordo com Kant, a técnica da natureza permite as leis da razão a representarem o acordo dos princípios transcendentais da razão com a natureza. Deste modo, o conceito da técnica da natureza assume um papel prolífico ao expor, através de uma analogia com as faculdades humanas, a atividade produtiva da natureza, como se sua atividade fosse orientada a fins.The relationship between reason and nature embodies one of the main aspects of Kant‟s critique of teleology. In order to highlight this relation, I shall investigate the concept of the technique of nature, as it has been introduced in Critique of the Power of Judgment. According to Kant, the technique of nature allows the laws of reason to represent the agreement of the transcendental principles of reason with nature. Thus, the concept of the technique of nature assumes a fruitful role by exposing, through an analogy with human faculties, the productive activity of nature, as if its activity were oriented towards ends.

This book focuses on two central topics that could help us answer how Plato conceives of the physical world and its relationship to Forms. The first one is the Platonic concept of time. What is it, how is it defined, what is it not, and how does it help us describe the changing realities surrounding us? The second one is Plato’s understanding of the perceptible world. How is it related to Forms, and how exactly does it work? These are central, wide-ranging, and highly contested questions garnering attention in recent Platonic scholarship. We have ensembled an international team that aims to offer bold, innovative, and thought-provoking answers to these questions. The nine contributions in this book represent a diverse range of starting points, methodologies, and interpretative traditions whose collective aim is to challenge your assumptions about Plato’s philosophy and help you rethink and revisit the Platonic corpus with fresh eyes.

This contribution focuses on Kant’s doctrine of hypotyposis as deployed in the Critique of Judgment and explores its implications for his view of what I call “functional cosmology”. Despite the number of metaphors used by Kant in the pre-critical works, it is only in the early 1790s that his system could account for the use and function of metaphors and symbolic representation in the natural sciences connecting them to aesthetics and ethics. This account was also stimulated by the debates surrounding Plato’s dialogues and Neoplatonic texts at the end of the 18th century. Therefore, this paper suggests that Kant offered his own solution to the problem of thinking of the universe as an organism within the limits of transcendental philosophy.

The question of the dimensionality of space has informed the development of physics since the beginning of the twentieth century in the quest for a unified picture of quantum processes and gravitation. Scientists have worked within various approaches to explain why the universe appears to have a certain number of spatial dimensions. The question of why space has three dimensions has a genuinely philosophical nature that can be shaped as a problem of justifying a contingent necessity of the world. In contrast to explanations of three-dimensionality based on anthropic arguments, we support the search for a theory that provides a justification for the dimensionality of space based on a combination of deductive and inductive reasoning applied to science. In doing so, we argue that Kant correctly approached the question in “Thoughts on the true estimation of living forces” by connecting space dimensionality and the inverse square law. In expounding the strategy of Kant’s argument, we describe the main features of a general Kantian explanation of the dimensionality of space and discuss them with respect to current accounts of explanation in the philosophy of science, such as inference to the best explanation and the deductive-nomological model.

This contribution sheds light on the role of infinite idealization in structural analysis, by exploring how infinite elements and finite element methods are combined in civil engineering models. This combination, I claim, should be read in terms of a ‘complementarity function’ through which the representational ideal of completeness is reached in engineering model-building. Taking a cue from Weisberg’s definition of multiple-model idealization, I highlight how infinite idealizations are primarily meant to contribute to the prediction of structural behavior in Multiphysics approaches.

In the 1780s Kant’s critique of rational cosmology clearly identified the limits of theoretical cosmology in agreement with the doctrine of transcendental idealism of space and time. However, what seems to be less explored, and remains still a desideratum for the literature, is a thorough investigation of the implications of transcendental philosophy for Kant’s view of cosmology in the 1790s. This contribution fills this gap by investigating Kant’s view of teleology and measurement in the Critique of Judgment, exploring their implications for Kant’s late view of cosmology. Considering the historical and scientific context in which Kant developed his reflections motivates my proposal to read Kant’s late view of the universe in terms of “functional cosmology.”

A respectable assessment of priority-based ontic structuralism demands an elucidation of its metaphysical backbone. Here we focus on two theses that stand in need of clarification: the Fundamentality Thesis states that structures are fundamental, and the Priority Thesis states that these structures are prior to putative fundamental objects, if these exist. Candidate notions to illuminate and such as supervenience and ontological dependence failed at this task. Our purpose is to show that grounding is the best competitor to articulate and, and regiment such theses in a desirable unified way. Our strategy is two-fold. First, we make the case that grounding does better than ontological dependence and supervenience. Second, we show that the distinction between partial and full grounds permits us to respond to an objection raised by Kerry McKenzie against the proposal of interpreting priority-based Ontic Structuralism in the idiom of metaphysical determination. Our conclusion is that priority ontic structuralists have compelling reasons for adopting a grounding-based approach.