Roberts, Bryan W. and Thebault, Karim P Y (2026) Semantic Completion: A View From The Boundary. [Preprint]
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Abstract
The concept of a boundary condition was developed to encode a scientific model's behaviour at spatial boundaries, and has since become an expansive and indispensable part of scientific practice. Unfortunately, its philosophical nature remains obscure. Boundary conditions fit poorly into familiar philosophical categories such as the contingent-nomological distinction, and philosophical accounts are often too narrow or too broad. In this paper, we argue that boundary conditions have a single overarching character: to constrain a model's behaviour by appeal to degrees of freedom not included in that model. This generalises the notion of a boundary to allow not just boundaries in space but in representation more generally, including scale. We refer to this practice as Semantic Completion, arguing that it better captures the rich variety of boundary conditions in science while providing a constructive framework for reconciling some old philosophical disagreements.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | |||||||||
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| Keywords: | boundary conditions, philosophy of physics | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism Specific Sciences > Physics General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Depositing User: | Bryan W. Roberts | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 07 Apr 2026 12:37 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 07 Apr 2026 12:37 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 28938 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism Specific Sciences > Physics General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Date: | 2026 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/28938 |
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