Process realism in physics : how experiment and history necessitate a process ontology

Author(s)
    • Penn, William
Bibliographic Information

Process realism in physics : how experiment and history necessitate a process ontology

William Penn

(Process thought, v.28)

De Gruyter, c2023

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Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Science should tell us what the world is like. However, realist interpretations of physics face many problems, chief among them the pessimistic meta induction. This book seeks to develop a realist position based on process ontology that avoids the traditional problems of realism. Primarily, the core claim is that in order for a scientific model to be minimally empirically adequate, that model must describe real experimental processes and dynamics. Any additional inferences from processes to things, substances or objects are not warranted, and so these inferences are shown to represent the locus of the problems of realism. The book then examines the history of physics to show that the progress of physical research is one of successive eliminations of thing interpretations of models in favor of more explanatory and experimentally verified process interpretations. This culminates in collections of models that cannot coherently allow for thing interpretations, but still successfully describe processes.

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Details
  • NCID
    BD03579854
  • ISBN
    • 9783110782370
  • LCCN
    2023933436
  • Country Code
    gw
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Berlin
  • Pages/Volumes
    xi, 193 p.
  • Size
    24 cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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