Recent literature on causation invokes a distinction between deviant and default behavior to acco... more Recent literature on causation invokes a distinction between deviant and default behavior to account for token causation. Critical examination of two prominent attempts to employ a distinction between deviants and defaults reveals that the distinction is far from clear. I clarify and develop the distinction by appeal to the notion of a modally robust process, and show how the distinction can be employed by causal process theorists to respond to cases of causation by omission. This shows that the default/deviant distinction is not so much a tool for counterfactual accounts of causation, but rather for causal process theory.
Realists about science tend to hold that our scientific theories aim for the truth, that our suc... more Realists about science tend to hold that our scientific theories aim for the truth, that our successful theories are at least partly true, and that the entities referred to by the theoretical terms of these theories exist. Antirealists about science deny one or more of these claims. A sizable minority of philosophers of science prefers not to take sides: they believe the realism debate to be fundamentally mistaken and seek to abstain from it altogether. In analogy with other realism debates I will call these philosophers quietists. In the philosophy of science quietism often takes a somewhat peculiar form, which I will call naturalistic quietism. In this paper I will characterize Maddy’s Second Philosophy as a form of naturalist quietism, and show what the costs for making it feasible are.
In this paper I aim to answer two questions: 1) Can spin be treated as a determinable? 2) Can a t... more In this paper I aim to answer two questions: 1) Can spin be treated as a determinable? 2) Can a treatment of spin as a determinable be used to understand quantum indeterminacy? In response to the first question I show that the relations among spin number, spin components and spin values cannot be captured by a single determination relation; instead we need to look at spin number and spin value separately. In response to the second question I discuss three ways in which the determinables model might be modified to account for indeterminacy, and argue that none of them is fully successful in helping us to understand quantum indeterminacy.
Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, Feb 2014
Werner Heisenberg’s 1925 paper “Quantum-theoretical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical... more Werner Heisenberg’s 1925 paper “Quantum-theoretical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical relations” marks the beginning of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg famously claims that the paper is based on the idea that the new quantum mechanics should be “founded exclusively upon relationships between quantities which in principle are observable”. My paper is an attempt to understand this observability principle, and to see whether its employment is philosophically defensible. Against interpretations of ‘observability’ along empiricist or positivist lines I argue that such readings are philosophically unsatisfying. Moreover, a careful comparison of Heisenberg’s reinterpretation of classical kinematics with Einstein’s argument against absolute simultaneity reveals that the positivist reading does not fit with Heisenberg’s strategy in the paper. Instead the complain that electron orbits are unobservable should be understood as a criticism of the causal inefficacy of orbital electron motion in Bohr’s atomic model. I conclude that the tacit philosophical principle behind Heisenberg’s argument is not a positivistic connection between observability and meaning, but the idea that a theory should not contain causally idle wheels.
Are laws of nature necessary, and if so, are all laws of nature necessary in the same way? This q... more Are laws of nature necessary, and if so, are all laws of nature necessary in the same way? This question has played an important role in recent discussion of laws of nature. I argue that not all laws of nature are necessary in the same way: conservation laws are perhaps to be regarded as metaphysically necessary. This sheds light both on the modal character of conservation laws, and on the relationship between different varieties of necessity.
Ontic Structural Realists hold that structure is all there is, or at least all there is fundament... more Ontic Structural Realists hold that structure is all there is, or at least all there is fundamentally. This thesis has proved to be puzzling: what exactly does it say about the relationship between objects and structures? In this paper I look at different ways of articulating ontic structural realism in terms of the relation between structures and objects. I show that objects cannot be reduced to structures, and argue that ontological dependence cannot be used to establish strong forms of structural realism. At the end I show how a weaker, but controversial, form of structural realism can be articulated on the basis of ontological dependence.
Recent literature on causation invokes a distinction between deviant and default behavior to acco... more Recent literature on causation invokes a distinction between deviant and default behavior to account for token causation. Critical examination of two prominent attempts to employ a distinction between deviants and defaults reveals that the distinction is far from clear. I clarify and develop the distinction by appeal to the notion of a modally robust process, and show how the distinction can be employed by causal process theorists to respond to cases of causation by omission. This shows that the default/deviant distinction is not so much a tool for counterfactual accounts of causation, but rather for causal process theory.
Realists about science tend to hold that our scientific theories aim for the truth, that our suc... more Realists about science tend to hold that our scientific theories aim for the truth, that our successful theories are at least partly true, and that the entities referred to by the theoretical terms of these theories exist. Antirealists about science deny one or more of these claims. A sizable minority of philosophers of science prefers not to take sides: they believe the realism debate to be fundamentally mistaken and seek to abstain from it altogether. In analogy with other realism debates I will call these philosophers quietists. In the philosophy of science quietism often takes a somewhat peculiar form, which I will call naturalistic quietism. In this paper I will characterize Maddy’s Second Philosophy as a form of naturalist quietism, and show what the costs for making it feasible are.
In this paper I aim to answer two questions: 1) Can spin be treated as a determinable? 2) Can a t... more In this paper I aim to answer two questions: 1) Can spin be treated as a determinable? 2) Can a treatment of spin as a determinable be used to understand quantum indeterminacy? In response to the first question I show that the relations among spin number, spin components and spin values cannot be captured by a single determination relation; instead we need to look at spin number and spin value separately. In response to the second question I discuss three ways in which the determinables model might be modified to account for indeterminacy, and argue that none of them is fully successful in helping us to understand quantum indeterminacy.
Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, Feb 2014
Werner Heisenberg’s 1925 paper “Quantum-theoretical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical... more Werner Heisenberg’s 1925 paper “Quantum-theoretical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical relations” marks the beginning of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg famously claims that the paper is based on the idea that the new quantum mechanics should be “founded exclusively upon relationships between quantities which in principle are observable”. My paper is an attempt to understand this observability principle, and to see whether its employment is philosophically defensible. Against interpretations of ‘observability’ along empiricist or positivist lines I argue that such readings are philosophically unsatisfying. Moreover, a careful comparison of Heisenberg’s reinterpretation of classical kinematics with Einstein’s argument against absolute simultaneity reveals that the positivist reading does not fit with Heisenberg’s strategy in the paper. Instead the complain that electron orbits are unobservable should be understood as a criticism of the causal inefficacy of orbital electron motion in Bohr’s atomic model. I conclude that the tacit philosophical principle behind Heisenberg’s argument is not a positivistic connection between observability and meaning, but the idea that a theory should not contain causally idle wheels.
Are laws of nature necessary, and if so, are all laws of nature necessary in the same way? This q... more Are laws of nature necessary, and if so, are all laws of nature necessary in the same way? This question has played an important role in recent discussion of laws of nature. I argue that not all laws of nature are necessary in the same way: conservation laws are perhaps to be regarded as metaphysically necessary. This sheds light both on the modal character of conservation laws, and on the relationship between different varieties of necessity.
Ontic Structural Realists hold that structure is all there is, or at least all there is fundament... more Ontic Structural Realists hold that structure is all there is, or at least all there is fundamentally. This thesis has proved to be puzzling: what exactly does it say about the relationship between objects and structures? In this paper I look at different ways of articulating ontic structural realism in terms of the relation between structures and objects. I show that objects cannot be reduced to structures, and argue that ontological dependence cannot be used to establish strong forms of structural realism. At the end I show how a weaker, but controversial, form of structural realism can be articulated on the basis of ontological dependence.
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Papers by J. Wolff
reduced to structures, and argue that ontological dependence cannot be used to establish strong forms of structural realism. At the end I show how a weaker, but controversial, form of structural realism can be articulated on the basis of ontological dependence.
reduced to structures, and argue that ontological dependence cannot be used to establish strong forms of structural realism. At the end I show how a weaker, but controversial, form of structural realism can be articulated on the basis of ontological dependence.