A Minimalist Ontology of the Natural World

A Minimalist Ontology of the Natural World

A Minimalist Ontology of the Natural World

A Minimalist Ontology of the Natural World

eBook

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Overview

This book seeks to work out which commitments are minimally sufficient to obtain an ontology of the natural world that matches all of today’s well-established physical theories. We propose an ontology of the natural world that is defined only by two axioms: (1) There are distance relations that individuate simple objects, namely matter points. (2) The matter points are permanent, with the distances between them changing. Everything else comes in as a means to represent the change in the distance relations in a manner that is both as simple and as informative as possible. The book works this minimalist ontology out in philosophical as well as mathematical terms and shows how one can understand classical mechanics, quantum field theory and relativistic physics on the basis of this ontology. Along the way, we seek to achieve four subsidiary aims: (a) to make a case for a holistic individuation of the basic objects (ontic structural realism); (b) to work out a new version of Humeanism, dubbed Super-Humeanism, that does without natural properties; (c) to set out an ontology of quantum physics that is an alternative to quantum state realism and that avoids any ontological dualism of particles and fields; (d) to vindicate a relationalist ontology based on point objects also in the domain of relativistic physics.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781351392167
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publication date: 10/25/2017
Series: Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Mathematics and Physics
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 188
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Michael Esfeld is full professor of philosophy of science at the University of Lausanne since 2002. His last book with Routledge is Conservative reductionism (with Christian Sachse) (2008).

Dirk-André Deckert is leader of the junior research group « Interaction of Light and Matter » in the Mathematical Institute of Ludwig Maximilians University Munich. Book publication Electromagnetic absorber theory – a mathematical study (2010).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Matter Points and their Dynamics

3. Minimalist Ontology and Dynamical Structure in Classical and Quantum Mechanics

4. A Persistent Particle Ontology for Quantum Field Theory

5. Relationalism for Retativisitc Physics

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