Causation and the Conservation of Energy in General Relativity.
Consensus in the contemporary philosophical literature has it that conserved quantity theories of causation such as that of Dowe—according to which causation is to be analysed in terms of the exchange of conserved quantities (for example, energy)—face damning problems when confronted with contempora...
| Publicado en: | British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol. 77; no. 3; pp. 867 - 895 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of Chicago Press
Sep2026
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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=196447487&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 196447487 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00070882 BPL jtl: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science issn: 00070882 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2026 vid: 77 iid: 3 pid: 415 pub: University of Chicago Press artinfo: ui: 196447487 10.1086/727030 ppf: 867 ppct: 28 formats: tig: atl: Causation and the Conservation of Energy in General Relativity. aug: au: Ramírez, Sebastián Murgueitio Read, James Páez, Andrés affil: Philosophy Department. Princeton University. Princeton, NJ, USA. Faculty of Philosophy. University of Oxford. Oxford, UK. Department of Philosophy. Universidad de los Andes. Bogotá, Colombia. su: Conservation of energy General relativity (Physics) Causation (Philosophy) Calculus of tensors Philosophy of science Conserved quantity Scientific method Symmetries (Quantum mechanics) sug: subj: Conservation of energy General relativity (Physics) Causation (Philosophy) Calculus of tensors Philosophy of science Conserved quantity Scientific method Symmetries (Quantum mechanics) ab: Consensus in the contemporary philosophical literature has it that conserved quantity theories of causation such as that of Dowe—according to which causation is to be analysed in terms of the exchange of conserved quantities (for example, energy)—face damning problems when confronted with contemporary physics, where the notion of conservation becomes delicate. In particular, it is often claimed that in general relativity there simply are no conservation laws for (say) total stress-energy. If this claim is correct, it is difficult to see how conserved quantity theories of causation could survive. In this article, we resist the above consensus and defend conserved quantity theories from this conclusion, at least when focusing on the apparent problems posed by general relativity. We argue that this approach to causation can continue to be defended in general relativity, once one appreciates the availability of approximate symmetries in generic general relativistic spacetimes, and the role of modelling and idealization in that theory. Given these points, conserved quantity theories of causation must stand or fall on other grounds. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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