Intrinsic Explanation and Field’s Dispensabilist Strategy.
Hartry Field defended the importance of his nominalist reformulation of Newtonian Gravitational Theory, as a response to the indispensability argument, on the basis of a general principle of intrinsic explanation. In this paper, I argue that this principle is not sufficiently defensible, and can not...
| Publicado en: | International Journal of Philosophical Studies Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 163 - 184 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
May2013
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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=87398695&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 87398695 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 09672559 5BE jtl: International Journal of Philosophical Studies issn: 09672559 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: May2013 vid: 21 iid: 2 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 87398695 10.1080/09672559.2012.727011 ppf: 163 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 107KB tig: atl: Intrinsic Explanation and Field’s Dispensabilist Strategy. aug: au: Marcus, Russell affil: Hamilton College, USA su: Field, Hartry Nominalism Newton's law of gravitation Spacetime Mathematical reformulation sug: subj: Field, Hartry Nominalism Newton's law of gravitation Spacetime Mathematical reformulation keyword: Hartry Field indispensability argument intrinsic explanation philosophy of mathematics ab: Hartry Field defended the importance of his nominalist reformulation of Newtonian Gravitational Theory, as a response to the indispensability argument, on the basis of a general principle of intrinsic explanation. In this paper, I argue that this principle is not sufficiently defensible, and can not do the work for which Field uses it. I argue first that the model for Field’s reformulation, Hilbert’s axiomatization of Euclidean geometry, can be understood without appealing to the principle. Second, I argue that our desires to unify our theories and explanations undermines Field’s principle. Third, the claim that extrinsic theories seem like magic is, in this case, really just a demand for an account of the applications of mathematics in science. Finally, even if we were to accept the principle, it would not favor the fictionalism that motivates Field’s argument, since the indispensabilist’s mathematical objects are actually intrinsic to scientific theory. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of International Journal of Philosophical Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: International Journal of Philosophical Studies holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2013 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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