Idealizations In Physics
DOWNLOAD
Download Idealizations In Physics PDF/ePub or read online books in Mobi eBooks. Click Download or Read Online button to get Idealizations In Physics book now. This website allows unlimited access to, at the time of writing, more than 1.5 million titles, including hundreds of thousands of titles in various foreign languages. If the content not found or just blank you must refresh this page
Idealizations In Physics
DOWNLOAD
Author : Elay Shech
language : en
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release Date : 2023-01-26
Idealizations In Physics written by Elay Shech and has been published by Cambridge University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2023-01-26 with Philosophy categories.
This Element offers an opinionated and selective introduction to philosophical issues concerning idealizations in physics, including the concept of and reasons for introducing idealization, abstraction, and approximation, possible taxonomy and justification, and application to issues of mathematical Platonism, scientific realism, and scientific understanding.
The Oxford Handbook Of Philosophy Of Physics
DOWNLOAD
Author : Robert Batterman
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2013-03-14
The Oxford Handbook Of Philosophy Of Physics written by Robert Batterman and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013-03-14 with Philosophy categories.
This Oxford Handbook provides an overview of many of the topics that currently engage philosophers of physics. It surveys new issues and the problems that have become a focus of attention in recent years. It also provides up-to-date discussions of the still very important problems that dominated the field in the past. In the late 20th Century, the philosophy of physics was largely focused on orthodox Quantum Mechanics and Relativity Theory. The measurement problem, the question of the possibility of hidden variables, and the nature of quantum locality dominated the literature on the quantum mechanics, whereas questions about relationalism vs. substantivalism, and issues about underdetermination of theories dominated the literature on spacetime. These issues still receive considerable attention from philosophers, but many have shifted their attentions to other questions related to quantum mechanics and to spacetime theories. Quantum field theory has become a major focus, particularly from the point of view of algebraic foundations. Concurrent with these trends, there has been a focus on understanding gauge invariance and symmetries. The philosophy of physics has evolved even further in recent years with attention being paid to theories that, for the most part, were largely ignored in the past. For example, the relationship between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics—-once thought to be a paradigm instance of unproblematic theory reduction—-is now a hotly debated topic. The implicit, and sometimes explicit, reductionist methodology of both philosophers and physicists has been severely criticized and attention has now turned to the explanatory and descriptive roles of "non-fundamental,'' phenomenological theories. This shift of attention includes "old'' theories such as classical mechanics, once deemed to be of little philosophical interest. Furthermore, some philosophers have become more interested in "less fundamental'' contemporary physics such as condensed matter theory. Questions abound with implications for the nature of models, idealizations, and explanation in physics. This Handbook showcases all these aspects of this complex and dynamic discipline.
Idealization Ix Idealization In Contemporary Physics
DOWNLOAD
Author :
language : en
Publisher: BRILL
Release Date : 2023-05-30
Idealization Ix Idealization In Contemporary Physics written by and has been published by BRILL this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2023-05-30 with Science categories.
Here is presented for the first time a comprehensive review and analysis of the several roles played by idealization procedures in the logic, mathematics and models that lie at the heart of modern, twentieth century physics. It is only through idealization of one form or another that the objects and processes of modern physics become tractable. The essays in this volume will be of interest to all those who are concerned with the uses of models in physics, and the relationships between models and the real world. The essays in this volume cover the role of idealization in all the main areas of modern physics, ranging from quantum theory, relativity theory and cosmology to chaos theory.
How To Do Science With Models
DOWNLOAD
Author : Axel Gelfert
language : en
Publisher: Springer
Release Date : 2015-12-21
How To Do Science With Models written by Axel Gelfert and has been published by Springer this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015-12-21 with Philosophy categories.
Taking scientific practice as its starting point, this book charts the complex territory of models used in science. It examines what scientific models are and what their function is. Reliance on models is pervasive in science, and scientists often need to construct models in order to explain or predict anything of interest at all. The diversity of kinds of models one finds in science – ranging from toy models and scale models to theoretical and mathematical models – has attracted attention not only from scientists, but also from philosophers, sociologists, and historians of science. This has given rise to a wide variety of case studies that look at the different uses to which models have been put in specific scientific contexts. By exploring current debates on the use and building of models via cutting-edge examples drawn from physics and biology, the book provides broad insight into the methodology of modelling in the natural sciences. It pairs specific arguments with introductory material relating to the ontology and the function of models, and provides some historical context to the debates as well as a sketch of general positions in the philosophy of scientific models in the process.
True Enough
DOWNLOAD
Author : Catherine Z. Elgin
language : en
Publisher: MIT Press
Release Date : 2017-09-29
True Enough written by Catherine Z. Elgin and has been published by MIT Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-09-29 with Philosophy categories.
The development of an epistemology that explains how science and art embody and convey understanding. Philosophy valorizes truth, holding that there can never be epistemically good reasons to accept a known falsehood, or to accept modes of justification that are not truth conducive. How can this stance account for the epistemic standing of science, which unabashedly relies on models, idealizations, and thought experiments that are known not to be true? In True Enough, Catherine Elgin argues that we should not assume that the inaccuracy of models and idealizations constitutes an inadequacy. To the contrary, their divergence from truth or representational accuracy fosters their epistemic functioning. When effective, models and idealizations are, Elgin contends, felicitous falsehoods that exemplify features of the phenomena they bear on. Because works of art deploy the same sorts of felicitous falsehoods, she argues, they also advance understanding. Elgin develops a holistic epistemology that focuses on the understanding of broad ranges of phenomena rather than knowledge of individual facts. Epistemic acceptability, she maintains, is a matter not of truth-conduciveness, but of what would be reflectively endorsed by the members of an idealized epistemic community—a quasi-Kantian realm of epistemic ends.
Interpreting Quantum Theories
DOWNLOAD
Author : Laura Ruetsche
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2011-06-02
Interpreting Quantum Theories written by Laura Ruetsche and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-06-02 with Philosophy categories.
Philosophers of quantum mechanics have generally addressed exceedingly simple systems. Laura Ruetsche offers a much-needed study of the interpretation of more complicated systems, and an underexplored family of physical theories, such as quantum field theory and quantum statistical mechanics, showing why they repay philosophical attention.
The Instrument Of Science
DOWNLOAD
Author : Darrell P. Rowbottom
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2019-03-25
The Instrument Of Science written by Darrell P. Rowbottom and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019-03-25 with Philosophy categories.
Roughly, instrumentalism is the view that science is primarily, and should primarily be, an instrument for furthering our practical ends. It has fallen out of favour because historically influential variants of the view, such as logical positivism, suffered from serious defects. In this book, however, Darrell P. Rowbottom develops a new form of instrumentalism, which is more sophisticated and resilient than its predecessors. This position—‘cognitive instrumentalism’—involves three core theses. First, science makes theoretical progress primarily when it furnishes us with more predictive power or understanding concerning observable things. Second, scientific discourse concerning unobservable things should only be taken literally in so far as it involves observable properties or analogies with observable things. Third, scientific claims about unobservable things are probably neither approximately true nor liable to change in such a way as to increase in truthlikeness. There are examples from science throughout the book, and Rowbottom demonstrates at length how cognitive instrumentalism fits with the development of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century chemistry and physics, and especially atomic theory. Drawing upon this history, Rowbottom also argues that there is a kind of understanding, empirical understanding, which we can achieve without having true, or even approximately true, representations of unobservable things. In closing the book, he sets forth his view on how the distinction between the observable and unobservable may be drawn, and compares cognitive instrumentalism with key contemporary alternatives such as structural realism, constructive empiricism, and semirealism. Overall, this book offers a strong defence of instrumentalism that will be of interest to scholars and students working on the debate about realism in philosophy of science.
The Dancing Wu Li Masters
DOWNLOAD
Author : Gary Zukav
language : en
Publisher: Random House
Release Date : 2012-12-31
The Dancing Wu Li Masters written by Gary Zukav and has been published by Random House this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-12-31 with Science categories.
This is an account of the essential aspects of the new physics for those with little or no knowledge of mathematics or science. It describes current theories of quantum mechanics, Einstein's special and general theories of relativity and other speculations, alluding throughout to parallels with modern psychology and metaphorical abstractions to Buddhism and Taoism. The author has also written "The Seat of the Soul".
The Idealized Mind
DOWNLOAD
Author : Michael D. Kirchhoff
language : en
Publisher: MIT Press
Release Date : 2025-08-05
The Idealized Mind written by Michael D. Kirchhoff and has been published by MIT Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2025-08-05 with Philosophy categories.
A defense of scientific realism based on the role of idealization in the cognitive sciences. We study nature, including the mind and brain, by building scientific models. In The Idealized Mind, Michael Kirchhoff brings together ideas from the philosophy of cognitive science and the philosophy of science to reconcile scientific realism with model-based science. His defense of scientific realism—the view that one reasonable aim of science is to provide true (or approximately true) descriptions of reality—is based on the role of idealization in the cognitive sciences. Idealization, he claims, is inevitable in cognitive science; at the same time, any understanding of the mind and brain must show how it is possible for scientific models to be reliably used to make truth-conditional assertions about their target phenomena. A central error in most theorizing about the mind, Kirchhoff claims, is to confuse the properties of scientific models with those of the system being modeled. But scientific models are, almost exclusively and unavoidably, idealizations of the world we seek to understand. They are descriptions of hypothetical systems, things that do not actually exist in nature. Specifically, Kirchhoff uses insights on idealization in science to assess the status and standing of three foundational issues in cognitive science: neural representation, neural computation, and the prospects for explanatory unification. He also explains why it is a mistake to approach neural representation and neural computation through the metaphysical stances of realism, fictionalism, or eliminativism.
Models And Idealizations In Science
DOWNLOAD
Author : Alejandro Cassini
language : en
Publisher: Springer Nature
Release Date : 2021-05-27
Models And Idealizations In Science written by Alejandro Cassini and has been published by Springer Nature this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2021-05-27 with Philosophy categories.
This book provides both an introduction to the philosophy of scientific modeling and a contribution to the discussion and clarification of two recent philosophical conceptions of models: artifactualism and fictionalism. These can be viewed as different stances concerning the standard representationalist account of scientific models. By better understanding these two alternative views, readers will gain a deeper insight into what a model is as well as how models function in different sciences. Fictionalism has been a traditional epistemological stance related to antirealist construals of laws and theories, such as instrumentalism and inferentialism. By contrast, the more recent fictional view of models holds that scientific models must be conceived of as the same kind of entities as literary characters and places. This approach is essentially an answer to the ontological question concerning the nature of models, which in principle is not incompatible with a representationalist account of the function of models. The artifactual view of models is an approach according to which scientific models are epistemic artifacts, whose main function is not to represent the phenomena but rather to provide epistemic access to them. It can be conceived of as a non-representationalist and pragmatic account of modeling, which does not intend to focus on the ontology of models but rather on the ways they are built and used for different purposes. The different essays address questions such as the artifactual view of idealization, the use of information theory to elucidate the concepts of abstraction and idealization, the deidealization of models, the nature of scientific fictions, the structural account of representation and the ontological status of structures, the role of surrogative reasoning with models, and the use of models for explaining and predicting physical phenomena.