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No Grounds for Effective Theories

McKenzie, Kerry (2024) No Grounds for Effective Theories. [Preprint]

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Abstract

In recent years there has been an ‘explosion’ of work in metaphysics aimed at articulating ‘levels of reality’ – a structural aspect of the world both suggested and investigated by the sciences. And in that context, the relation of grounding has emerged as the preferred relation with which to connect the levels. This paper argues that we cannot take grounding to be the relation that connects levels, insofar as those levels are described by effective quantum field theories. This is a problem for the grounding theorist, because effective field theory is taken to provide an explanation of why there seem to be levels in physics at all.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
McKenzie, Kerrykmckenzie@ucsdedu0000-0002-5668-0311
Subjects: General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics
Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory
Depositing User: Miss Kerry McKenzie
Date Deposited: 12 Jan 2024 12:48
Last Modified: 12 Jan 2024 12:48
Item ID: 22956
Subjects: General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics
Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory
Date: 2024
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/22956

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