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Why Not Categorical Equivalence?

Weatherall, James Owen (2018) Why Not Categorical Equivalence? [Preprint]

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Abstract

In recent years philosophers of science have explored categorical equivalence as a promising criterion for when two (physical) theories are equivalent. On the one hand, philosophers have presented several examples of theories whose relationships seem to be clarified using these categorical methods. On the other hand, philosophers and logicians have studied the relationships, particularly in the first order case, between categorical equivalence and other notions of equivalence of theories, including definitional equivalence and generalized definitional (aka Morita) equivalence. In this article, I will express some skepticism about this approach, both on technical grounds and conceptual ones. I will argue that "category structure" (alone) likely does not capture the structure of a theory, and discuss some recent work in light of this claim.

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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Weatherall, James Owenweatherj@uci.edu
Keywords: equivalence, categorical equivalence, structure, Barrett, Hudetz, Rosenstock
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics
General Issues > Structure of Theories
Depositing User: James Owen Weatherall
Date Deposited: 24 Jan 2020 01:27
Last Modified: 24 Jan 2020 01:27
Item ID: 16847
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics
General Issues > Structure of Theories
Date: 2018
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/16847

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