On Einstein algebras and relativistic spacetimes

Rosenstock, Sarita; Barrett, Thomas William; Weatherall, James Owen

doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2015.09.003

Cited by 64 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…3 Rosenstock et al (2015) and Weatherall (2016a,b) do refer to 'empirical equivalence' in addition to the formal relations between theories construed as categories, but their emphasis is still on the latter. Moreover the sort of equivalence I am considering here goes beyond equivalence of empirical content (Sklar (1982) provides a useful discussion of the relationship between empirical and theoretical equivalence).…”

Section: Representational Equivalencementioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Representation and Theoretical Equivalence

Nguyen¹

2017

Philos. of Sci.

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In this paper I connect two debates in the philosophy of science; the questions of scientific representation and both model and theoretical equivalence. I argue that by paying attention to how a model is used to draw inferences about its target system, we can define a notion of theoretical equivalence that turns on whether their models licence the same claims about the same target systems. I briefly consider the implications of this for two questions that have recently been discussed in the context of the formal philosophy of science.

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Section: Representational Equivalencementioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Representation and Theoretical Equivalence

Nguyen¹

2017

Philos. of Sci.

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“…One way of doing this would be to fix a global labeling system, so that famous permutation argument. 39 Or, we hasten to add, Einstein algebras, since the latter are, in a precise sense, equivalent to relativistic spacetimes (Rosenstock et al, 2015). each point is given a unique label.…”

Section: The Hole Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Briefly, in constructing a 1 For a discussion of the role of this theme in Earman's thinking on the hole argument during the 1970s and 1980s, see Weatherall (2018c) and references therein. 2 Earman, for instance, proposed moving to Einstein algebras (Geroch, 1972) as a suitably 'relationist' alternative to standard formulations of general relativity (Earman, 1986a(Earman, ,b, 1989aRynasiewicz, 1992;Bain, 2003;Rosenstock et al, 2015). Similar issues are at stake when, for instance, Rovelli (2006, p. 31) argues that the manifold is 'a gauge artifact' in general relativity or Smolin (2000, p. 5) argues that there are no points in physical spacetime.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Representational Redundancy, Surplus Structure, and the Hole Argument

Bradley

Weatherall

2020

Found Phys

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We address a recent proposal concerning 'surplus structure' due to Nguyen et al. [ 'Why Surplus Structure is Not Superfluous.' Br. J. Phi. Sci Forthcoming.] We argue that the sense of 'surplus structure' captured by their formal criterion is importantly different from-and in a sense, opposite to-another sense of 'surplus structure' used by philosophers. We argue that minimizing structure in one sense is generally incompatible with minimizing structure in the other sense. We then show how these distinctions bear on Nguyen et al.'s arguments about Yang-Mills theory and on the hole argument.

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“…See Glymour (1977), North (2009), Swanson andHalvorson (2012), Curiel (2014), Knox (2013), Barrett (2014), Weatherall (2015a,b,c), and Rosenstock et al (2015) for discussion of whether or not particular physical theories should be considered theoretically equivalent. Finally, see de Bouvére (1965), Kanger (1968), Pinter (1978), Pelletier and Urquhart (2003), Andréka et al (2005), Friedman and Visser (2014), and Barrett and Halvorson (2015a,b) for some results that have been proven about varieties of theoretical equivalence.…”

Section: Preliminariesmentioning

confidence: 99%