Super-Humeanism and physics: A merry relationship?

Kód výsledku v IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985955%3A_____%2F21%3A00549212" target="_blank" >RIV/67985955:_____/21:00549212 - isvavai.cz</a>

Výsledek na webu

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02717-w" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02717-w</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02717-w" target="_blank" >10.1007/s11229-020-02717-w</a>

Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

Super-Humeanism and physics: A merry relationship?

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

Humeanism started life as a metaphysical program that could turn out to be false if our best physical theories were to postulate ontological features at odds with Humean ones. However, even if this has arguably already happened, Humeanism is still considered one of the strongest and most appealing metaphysical theories for describing the physical world. What is even more surprising is that a radical Humean thesis-Super-Humeanism-which posits an extremely parsimonious ontology including nothing more than propertyless matter points and their distance relations, is said by its proponents to follow from an attentive reading of our best physical theories. Given its close relationship with physics, Super-Humeans argue that their doctrine (i) conforms to Scientific Realism, (ii) offers the ontology that best explains physics’ empirical evidence, and (iii) is a naturalistic theory. This paper investigates the strategies that Super-Humeans have adopted to defend these three claims and, more generally, its alleged closeness to physics. I will show that, contrary to what advocates of Super-Humeanism claim, some of its commitments have inevitably created a gap between itself and physics that is difficult to overcome. While it is laudable that Super-Humeans have adopted various strategies to close this gap, no strategy has yet fully succeeded.

Název v anglickém jazyce

Super-Humeanism and physics: A merry relationship?

Popis výsledku anglicky

Humeanism started life as a metaphysical program that could turn out to be false if our best physical theories were to postulate ontological features at odds with Humean ones. However, even if this has arguably already happened, Humeanism is still considered one of the strongest and most appealing metaphysical theories for describing the physical world. What is even more surprising is that a radical Humean thesis-Super-Humeanism-which posits an extremely parsimonious ontology including nothing more than propertyless matter points and their distance relations, is said by its proponents to follow from an attentive reading of our best physical theories. Given its close relationship with physics, Super-Humeans argue that their doctrine (i) conforms to Scientific Realism, (ii) offers the ontology that best explains physics’ empirical evidence, and (iii) is a naturalistic theory. This paper investigates the strategies that Super-Humeans have adopted to defend these three claims and, more generally, its alleged closeness to physics. I will show that, contrary to what advocates of Super-Humeanism claim, some of its commitments have inevitably created a gap between itself and physics that is difficult to overcome. While it is laudable that Super-Humeans have adopted various strategies to close this gap, no strategy has yet fully succeeded.

Druh

J_imp - Článek v periodiku v databázi Web of Science

CEP obor

—

OECD FORD obor

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Projekt

—

Návaznosti

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Rok uplatnění

2021

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Název periodika

Synthese

ISSN

0039-7857

e-ISSN

1573-0964

Svazek periodika

199

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

1/2

Stát vydavatele periodika

NL - Nizozemsko

Počet stran výsledku

23

Strana od-do

791-813

Kód UT WoS článku

000537329200002

EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

2-s2.0-85085979797