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11The Casimir Effect and the Interpretation of the VacuumStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 30 (1): 111-139. 1998.The Casimir force between two neutral metallic plates is often considered conclusive evidence for the reality of electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations in ‘empty space’. However, it is not well known that the Casimir force can be derived from many different points of view. The purpose of this note is to supply a conceptually oriented introduction to a representative set of these different interpretations. The different accounts suggest that the Casimir effect reveals nothing conclusive about th…Read more
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72The Casimir Effect and the Interpretation of the VacuumStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 30 (1): 111-139. 1999.The Casimir force between two neutral metallic plates is often considered conclusive evidence for the reality of electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations in ‘empty space’. However, it is not well known that the Casimir force can be derived from many different points of view. The purpose of this note is to supply a conceptually oriented introduction to a representative set of these different interpretations. The different accounts suggest that the Casimir effect reveals nothing conclusive about th…Read more
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11The reggeization program 1962–1982: Attempts at reconciling quantum field theory with S-matrix theoryArchive for History of Exact Sciences 41 (3): 239-283. 1991.
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21Scientific realism in the post-Kuhnian timesIn Wuppuluri Shyam & Francisco Antonio Dorio (eds.), The Map and the Territory: Exploring the Foundations of Science, Thought and Reality, Springer. pp. 101-123. 2018.Motivated by the developments in contemporary mathematical physics and the related interpretive and historiographical works on these developments, a structuralist and historically constitutive and constructive approach to scientific realism (SHASR) is proposed to address the challenges Thomas Kuhn raised against scientific realism, and to remove the defects of the currently available dissatisfactory responses the structuralists put forward to the challenges. The paper shows that SHASR productive…Read more
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23Marx’s Ideas and Conceptions of Socialism in the Twenty-First CenturyIn Shaibal Gupta, Marcello Musto & Babak Amini (eds.), Karl Marx’s Life, Ideas, and Influences: A Critical Examination on the Bicentenary, Springer Verlag. pp. 273-288. 2019.The failure of the statist models of socialism poses a challenge to socialists in conceiving a feasible non-statist model. In taking up the challenge, guided by Marx’s ideas that socialism will be the outcome of the struggles of the working classes in response to their capitalist conditions of existence; and its two pillars are “social property” and “conscious social regulation,” which ensure its superiority over capitalism, the defining feature of the contemporary financial capitalism together …Read more
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The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of PhilosophyThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 10. 2001.At this stage of evolution of our discipline, philosophy of science, there seems no single great theme that has attracted the attention of most practitioners in the field. Rather, scholarly works in the field are quite diffused. Traditional topics, such as reductionism and the unity of science, remain to be carefully examined from various perspectives. The debate over realism versus instrumentalism, although dismissed by some as uninteresting and unproductive, is still taken by many active schol…Read more
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24Key steps toward the creation of QCD: Notes on the logic and history of the genesis of QCDModern Physics Letters A 29 (25): 1430024. 2014.The creation of QCD is one of greatest achievements in the history of science. It has radically changed our conception of the fundamental ontology of the physical world and its underlying dynamics. What it has discovered are more than new particles and a new force, but rather a deeper level of physical reality, a new kind of entities. Dynamically, the strong nuclear forces are no longer taken to be fundamental, but are relegated to the status of the un-cancelled residue of far stronger long rang…Read more
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The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Volume 10: Philosophy of Science (edited book)Philosophy Doc Ctr. 2001.
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118Prerequisites for a Consistent Framework of Quantum GravityStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 32 (2): 181-204. 2001.
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19China and Albert Einstein: The Reception of the Physicist and His Theory in China, 1917–1979 (review)Isis 97 571-573. 2006.
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42Volume IntroductionThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 10 13-21. 2001.
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140Structural realism and quantum gravityIn Dean Rickles, Steven French & Juha T. Saatsi (eds.), The Structural Foundations of Quantum Gravity, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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11The Description of Nature: Niels Bohr and the Philosophy of Quantum Physics by John Honner (review)Isis 81 151-152. 1990.
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7Philosophy of ScienceBowling Green State Univ philosophy. 2001.With over 3,500 participants, the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy took as its theme Paideia: Philosophy Educating Humanity. The 10th proceedings volume (of 12) contains 21 contributions from international philosophers on diverse issues in the philosophy of science. A sampling of topics includes reduction in biology, instrumentalism, epistemological positions in the light of truth approximation, and consensus in science. The volume is not indexed. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc.,…Read more
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61Conceptual Development of 20th Century Field TheoriesCambridge University Press. 1997.From reviews of the hardback edition: a deep study of 20th century field ... of the conceptual origins and development of twentieth century field theories, ...
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7Theory Construction and Selection in Modern Physics: The S Matrix by James T. Cushing (review)Isis 83 682-684. 1992.
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24Incomplete, but RealEpistemology and Philosophy of Science 41 (3): 72-81. 2014.Various theories of referent are critically but briefly surveyed from the perspective of structural realism; a constructivist version of structural realist account of referent is outlined, and its implications for history of science and for descriptive metaphysics are briefly indicated.
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13The Description of Nature: Niels Bohr and the Philosophy of Quantum PhysicsJohn HonnerIsis 81 (1): 151-152. 1990.
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65Representation or Construction?The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 10 115-123. 2001.In this essay, I argue that the basic entities in the causally organized hierarchy of entities that quantum field theory describes are not particles but fields. Then I move to discuss, from the perspective of a structural realist, in what sense and to what degree this theoretical construction of fields can be taken as an objective representation of physical reality.
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2Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Field TheoryJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 33 (1): 174-181. 2002.
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55Ontology and scientific explanationIn John Cornwell (ed.), Explanations: styles of explanation in science, Oxford University Press. 2004.
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