Spacetime Models for Cosmology
History and Philosophy of Physics
2025-04-09 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
I revisit Roberto Torretti's "Spacetime Models for the World" [SHPMP 31 (2):171-186 (2000)] in the light of more recent work in (philosophy of) cosmology. I discuss the motivations for FLRW spacetimes as a natural starting point for inquiry, and I suggest contemporary cosmologists can avoid the rationalism that Torretti attributes to Einstein's early work in relativistic cosmology. I then discuss the senses in which FLRW models are idealized, and I show how those idealizations (and partial de-idealizations) have contributed to our understanding of the universe.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2504.05699,
title = {Spacetime Models for Cosmology},
author = {James Owen Weatherall},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.05699},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
21 pages. Presented as part of a symposium in honor of Roberto Torretti at CLMPST 2023 in Buenos Aires