Knox's inertial spacetime functionalism (and a better alternative).
Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws (the role of determining local inertial structure). I raise two objections to this inertial functionalism. First, it depends on a prior assumption about which coordinate s...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 199; no. 2; pp. 277 - 299 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Dec2021 Supplement 2
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=153929234&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 153929234 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2021 Supplement 2 vid: 199 iid: 2 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 153929234 10.1007/s11229-020-02598-z ppf: 277 ppct: 22 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 291KB tig: atl: Knox's inertial spacetime functionalism (and a better alternative). aug: au: Baker, David John affil: Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA su: Spacetime Quantum field theory Topological fields Relativity (Physics) Systems theory sug: subj: Spacetime Quantum field theory Topological fields Relativity (Physics) Systems theory keyword: Relationism Relativity theory Substantivalism ab: Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws (the role of determining local inertial structure). I raise two objections to this inertial functionalism. First, it depends on a prior assumption about which coordinate systems defined in a theory are reference frames, and hence on assumptions about which geometric structures are spatiotemporal. This makes Knox's account circular. Second, her account is vulnerable to several counterexamples, giving the wrong result when applied to topological quantum field theories and parity- and time-asymmetric theories. I advance an alternative account on which our spacetime concept is a cluster concept. On this view, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the cluster, in which case spacetime functionalism may be uninformative in the absence of answers to fundamental metaphysical questions like the substantivalist/relationist debate. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2021. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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