The task of quantizing general relativity raises serious questions about the meaning of the present formulation and interpretation of quantum mechanics when applied to so fundamental a structure as the space-time geometry itself. This paper seeks to clarify the foundations of quantum mechanics. It presents a reformulation of quantum theory in a form believed suitable for application to general relativity. The aim is not to deny or contradict the conventional formulation of quantum theory, which has demonstrated its usefulness in an overwhelming variety of problems, but rather to supply a new, more general and complete formulation, from which the conventional interpretation can be deduced. The relationship of this new formulation to the older formulation is therefore that of a metatheory to a theory, that is, it is an underlying theory in which the nature and consistency, as well as the realm of applicability, of the older theory can be investigated and clarified.

"relative State" Formulation of Quantum Mechanics

Causes and conditions.

Nature's capacities and their measurement

As the gateway to scientific thinking, an understanding of the scientific method is essential for success and productivity in science. This book is the first synthesis of the practice and the philosophy of the scientific method. It will enable scientists to be better scientists by offering them a deeper understanding of the underpinnings of the scientific method, thereby leading to more productive research and experimentation. It will also give scientists a more accurate perspective on the rationality of the scientific approach and its role in society. Beginning with a discussion of today's 'science wars' and science's presuppositions, the book then explores deductive and inductive logic, probability, statistics, and parsimony, and concludes with an examination of science's powers and limits, and a look at science education. Topics relevant to a variety of disciplines are treated, and clarifying figures, case studies, and chapter summaries enhance the pedagogy. This adeptly executed, comprehensive, yet pragmatic work yields a new synergy suitable for scientists and instructors, and graduate students and advanced undergraduates.

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Scientific method in practice

Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Truth and its Deformities

Apres avoir examine la conception du substantialisme developpee par J. Earman et J. Norton a partir de l'argument du trou, l'A. defend la version la plus plausible du substantialisme qui consiste en la theorie du champ metrique. Correspondant aux theories de l'espace-temps et de la relativite generale d'Einstein, l'A. montre que cette version du substantialisme resiste a l'attribution d'une identite primitive aux points spatio-temporels

The Metaphysics of Space-Time Substantivalism

The goal of this paper is to sketch and defend a new interpretation or theory of objective chance, one that lets us be sure such chances exist and shows how they can play the roles we traditionally grant them. The subtitle obviously emulates the title of Lewis seminal 1980 paper A Subjectivist s Guide to Objective Chance while indicating an important difference in perspective. The view developed below shares two major tenets with Lewis last (1994) account of objective chance: (1) The Principal Principle tells us most of what we know about objective chance; (2) Objective chances are not primitive modal facts, propensities, or powers, but rather facts entailed by the overall pattern of events and processes in the actual world. But it differs from Lewis’ account in most other respects. Another subtitle I considered was A Humean Guide ... But while the account of chance below is compatible with any stripe of Humeanism (Lewis , Hume s, and others ), it presupposes no general Humean philosophy. Only a skeptical attitude about probability itself is presupposed (as in point (2) above); what we should say about causality, laws, modality and so on is left a separate question. Still, I will label the account to be developed “Humean objective chance”.

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The Third Way on Objective Probability: A Sceptic's Guide to Objective Chance

The underdetermination of theory by evidence must be distinguished from holism. The latter is a doctrine about the testing of scientific hypotheses; the former is a thesis about empirically adequate logically incompatible global theories or "systems of the world". The distinction is crucial for an adequate assessment of the underdetermination thesis. The paper shows how some treatments of underdetermination are vitiated by failure to observe this distinction, and identifies some necessary conditions for the existence of multiple empirically equivalent global theories. We consider how empiricists should respond to the possibility of such systems of the world.

Empirical Equivalence, Underdetermination, and Systems of the World

The topics of gravitational field energy and energy-momentum conservation in General Relativity theory have been unjustly neglected by philosophers. If the gravitational field in space free of ordinary matter, as represented by the metric g ab itself, can be said to carry genuine energy and momentum, this is a powerful argument for adopting the substantivalist view of spacetime. This paper explores the standard textbook account of gravitational field energy and argues that (a) so-called stress-energy of the gravitational field is well-defined neither locally nor globally; and (b) there is no general principle of energy-momentum conservation to be found in General Relativity. I discuss the nature and justification of the zero-divergence law for ordinary stress-energy, and its possible connection with the failure of General Relativity to realise Mach's principle.

Carl Hoefer

Papers

The Metaphysics of Space-Time Substantivalism

The Third Way on Objective Probability: A Sceptic's Guide to Objective Chance

Empirical Equivalence, Underdetermination, and Systems of the World

Energy Conservation in GTR

Einstein's struggle for a Machian gravitation theory