North, Jill
(2026)
On Perspicuous Representation in Physics.
Journal for General Philosophy of Science.
Abstract
There are in general many different ways of representing something. How we represent something seems entirely up to us, a matter of convention or stipulation or unencumbered decision on our part, dictated solely by considerations as to what will be most useful for us given our aims and interests in the context. There are also in general better and worse ways of representing something. Philosophers of physics have generally thought that the quality of representation is likewise only ever a matter of pragmatic or other sorts of extrinsic and subjective factors that are tied to us. I argue that there is a non pragmatic, intrinsic, more objective sense in which one representation in physics can be better—more perspicuous—than another, a sense that flows from the nature of things themselves rather than aspects tied to us. One result is that there is a physically significant sense in which representations differing only in their level of perspicuity are not equivalent, where this includes different formulations of a physical theory.
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