The life cycle of scientific principles—a template for characterizing physical principles.
Scientific principles can undergo various developments. While philosophers of science have acknowledged that such changes occur, there is no systematic account of the development of scientific principles. Here we propose a template for analyzing the development of scientific principles called the ‘l...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 205; no. 3; pp. 1 - 30 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Mar2025
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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=183512653&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 183512653 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2025 vid: 205 iid: 3 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 183512653 10.1007/s11229-025-04972-1 ppf: 1 ppct: 29 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.2MB tig: atl: The life cycle of scientific principles—a template for characterizing physical principles. aug: au: Dardashti, Radin Fischer, Enno Harlander, Robert affil: https://ror.org/00613ak93 Interdisciplinary Center for Science and Technology Studies, University of Wuppertal, Gaußstr. 20, 42119, Wuppertal, Germany https://ror.org/042aqky30 Institute of Philosophy, Dresden University of Technology, Zellescher Weg 17, 01069, Dresden, Germany https://ror.org/04xfq0f34 Institute for Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology, RWTH Aachen University, 52056, Aachen, Germany sug: keyword: Lorentz invariance Mach’s principle Naturalness Scientific principles Testability ab: Scientific principles can undergo various developments. While philosophers of science have acknowledged that such changes occur, there is no systematic account of the development of scientific principles. Here we propose a template for analyzing the development of scientific principles called the ‘life cycle’ of principles. It includes a series of processes that principles can go through: prehistory, elevation, formalization, generalization, and challenge. The life cycle, we argue, is a useful heuristic for the analysis of the development of scientific principles. We illustrate this by discussing examples from foundational physics including Lorentz invariance, Mach’s principle, the naturalness principle, and the perfect cosmological principle. We also explore two applications of the template. First, we propose that the template can be employed to diagnose the quality of scientific principles. Second, we discuss the ramifications of the life cycle’s processes for the empirical testability of principles. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2025. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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