Wolf, William J. and Read, James (2023) Respecting Boundaries: Theoretical Equivalence and Structure Beyond Dynamics. [Preprint]
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Abstract
A standard line in the contemporary philosophical literature has it that physical theories are equivalent only when they agree on their empirical content, where this empirical content is often understood as being encoded in the equations of motion of those theories. In this article, we question whether it is indeed the case that the empirical content of a theory is exhausted by its equations of motion, showing that (for example) considerations of boundary conditions play a key role in the empirical equivalence (or otherwise) of theories. Having argued for this, we show that philosophical claims made by Knox (2011) that general relativity is equivalent to teleparallel gravity, and by Weatherall (2016) that electromagnetism in the Faraday tensor formalism is equivalent to electromagnetism in the vector potential formalism, can both be called into question. We then show that properly considering the role of boundary conditions in theory structure can potentially restore these claims of equivalence and close with some remarks on the pragmatics of adjudications on theory identity.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | |||||||||
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| Keywords: | Theoretical Equivalence, Dynamics, Semantics, Theory Structure, Teleparallel Gravity, General Relativity, Electromagnetism | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Models and Idealization General Issues > Philosophers of Science Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Depositing User: | Mr. William Wolf | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 15 Feb 2023 14:51 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 15 Feb 2023 14:51 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 21762 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Models and Idealization General Issues > Philosophers of Science Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Date: | 15 February 2023 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/21762 |
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