Dewar, Neil and Eisenthal, Joshua (2019) A Raum with a View: Hermann Weyl and the Problem of Space. [Preprint]

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Abstract

A central issue in the philosophical debates over general relativity concerns the status of the metric field: should it be regarded as part of the background arena in which physical fields evolve, or as a physical field itself? In this paper, we approach this debate through its relationship to the so-called "Problem of Space": the problem of determining which abstract, mathematical geometries are candidate descriptions of physical space. In particular, we explore the way that Hermann Weyl tackled the Problem of Space in the wake of general relativity, and argue that Weyl’s proposed solution reveals a “middle way” between bare-manifold and manifold-plus-metric accounts of spacetime.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Dewar, Neil neil.dewar@lrz.uni-muenchen.de 0000-0001-6623-4529 Eisenthal, Joshua joe22@pitt.edu
Additional Information:	To appear in Beisbart, Sauer and Wüthrich (eds.), "Thinking About Space and Time".
Subjects:	General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science General Issues > History of Science Case Studies Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Depositing User:	Neil Dewar
Date Deposited:	23 May 2019 11:36
Last Modified:	23 May 2019 11:36
Item ID:	15977
Subjects:	General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science General Issues > History of Science Case Studies Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Date:	14 April 2019
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15977

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