Rethinking Fragmentalism: Perspectives from Special and General Relativity.
Fragmentalism denies the view that we have perspectival representations of a non-perspectival world, arguing instead that the world itself is intrinsically perspectival and composed of fragmented sets of facts. We first examine the arguments put forth by Fine and Lipman, who challenge the notion of...
| Published in: | Philosophia Vol. 53; no. 3; pp. 1147 - 1158 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Jul2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=189055980&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 189055980 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00483893 1VPF jtl: Philosophia issn: 00483893 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2025 vid: 53 iid: 3 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 189055980 10.1007/s11406-025-00893-y ppf: 1147 ppct: 11 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 675KB tig: atl: Rethinking Fragmentalism: Perspectives from Special and General Relativity. aug: au: Zhao, Yi affil: https://ror.org/03x1jna21 Department of Philosophy, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China su: Special relativity (Physics) General relativity (Physics) Symmetry Reality Metaphysics sug: subj: Special relativity (Physics) General relativity (Physics) Symmetry Reality Metaphysics keyword: Fragmentalism Frame-relative properties General relativity Special relativity ab: Fragmentalism denies the view that we have perspectival representations of a non-perspectival world, arguing instead that the world itself is intrinsically perspectival and composed of fragmented sets of facts. We first examine the arguments put forth by Fine and Lipman, who challenge the notion of a single, coherent reality. Then, we critique their "standard" fragmentalist interpretation of Special Relativity and contend that it neglects the unifying role of invariant structures—such as the spacetime interval and the covariance of physical laws—that underpin the relativistic framework. Extending the analysis to General Relativity, we show that gravitational effects curve spacetime, undermining the idea of stable, idealized inertial frames and with them, the notion of clear-cut, isolated fragments. We also consider flow fragmentalism, which grounds fragments in causal relations rather than inertial frames, but argue that this move puts into question the very notion of fragments as metaphysically distinct. Drawing on the principle of equivalence and symmetry reasoning revealed by General Relativity, we conclude that fragmentalism is not metaphysically necessary and cannot exclude the possibility of a unified reality. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Philosophia is a copyright of Springer, 2025. All Rights Reserved. item: Philosophia holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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