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Should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? Two reasons why they should maybe not

Symmetry-based inferences have permeated many discussions in philosophy of physics and metaphysics of science. It is claimed that symmetries in our physical theories would allow us to draw metaphysical conclusions about the world, a view that I call ‘symmetry inferentialism’. This paper is critical...

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Autor principal: López, Cristian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10185597/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37205133
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13194-023-00525-w
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author López, Cristian
author_facet López, Cristian
author_sort López, Cristian
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description Symmetry-based inferences have permeated many discussions in philosophy of physics and metaphysics of science. It is claimed that symmetries in our physical theories would allow us to draw metaphysical conclusions about the world, a view that I call ‘symmetry inferentialism’. This paper is critical to this view. I claim that (a) it assumes a philosophically questionable characterization of the relevant validity domain of physical symmetries, and (b) it overlooks a distinction between two opposing ways through which relevant physical symmetries become established. My conclusion is that symmetry inferentialism loses persuasive force when these two points are taken into consideration.
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spelling pubmed-101855972023-05-17 Should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? Two reasons why they should maybe not López, Cristian Eur J Philos Sci Paper in Philosophy of the Natural Sciences Symmetry-based inferences have permeated many discussions in philosophy of physics and metaphysics of science. It is claimed that symmetries in our physical theories would allow us to draw metaphysical conclusions about the world, a view that I call ‘symmetry inferentialism’. This paper is critical to this view. I claim that (a) it assumes a philosophically questionable characterization of the relevant validity domain of physical symmetries, and (b) it overlooks a distinction between two opposing ways through which relevant physical symmetries become established. My conclusion is that symmetry inferentialism loses persuasive force when these two points are taken into consideration. Springer Netherlands 2023-05-15 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC10185597/ /pubmed/37205133 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13194-023-00525-w Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Paper in Philosophy of the Natural Sciences
López, Cristian
Should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? Two reasons why they should maybe not
title Should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? Two reasons why they should maybe not
title_full Should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? Two reasons why they should maybe not
title_fullStr Should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? Two reasons why they should maybe not
title_full_unstemmed Should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? Two reasons why they should maybe not
title_short Should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? Two reasons why they should maybe not
title_sort should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? two reasons why they should maybe not
topic Paper in Philosophy of the Natural Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10185597/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37205133
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13194-023-00525-w
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