相关论文: Hume's dictum as a guide to ontology

The pros and cons of various forms of atomism and holism that are applicable both in physical science and today's philosophy of nature are evaluated. To this end, Lewis' thesis of Humean supervenience is presented as an important case study…

In this introductory note, I describe my particular view of the notion of ontological commitments as honest and pragmatic working hypotheses that assume the existence (out there) of certain entities represented by the symbols in our theory.…

It is shown that Lewis' ontological doctrine of Humean supervenience incorporates at its foundation the so-called separability principle of classical physics. In view of the systematic violation of the latter within quantum mechanics, the…

Physical laws are strikingly simple, yet there is no a priori reason for them to be so. I propose that nomic realists -- Humeans and non-Humeans -- should recognize simplicity as a fundamental epistemic guide for discovering and evaluating…

This paper elaborates on relationalism about space and time as motivated by a minimalist ontology of the physical world: there are only matter points that are individuated by the distance relations among them, with these relations changing.…

Motivated by the question what it is that makes quantum mechanics a holistic theory (if so), I try to define for general physical theories what we mean by `holism'. For this purpose I propose an epistemological criterion to decide whether…

In the first part of the paper I argue that an ontology of events is precise, flexible and general enough so as to cover the three main alternative formulations of quantum mechanics as well as theories advocating an antirealistic view of…

The paper points out that the modern formulation of Bohm's quantum theory known as Bohmian mechanics is committed only to particles' positions and a law of motion. We explain how this view can avoid the open questions that the traditional…

A sharper formulation is presented for an interpretation of quantum mechanics advocated by author. As an essential element we put forward conservation laws concerning the ontological nature of a variable, and the uncertainties concerning…

This paper argues for the following three theses: (1) There is a clear reason to prefer physical theories with deterministic dynamical equations: such theories are maximally rich in information and usually also maximally simple. (2) There…

The paper starts with the proposal that the cause of the apparent insolubility of the free-will problem are several popular but strongly metaphysical notions and hypotheses. To reduce the metaphysics, some ideas are borrowed from physics. A…

A physical theory consists of the mathematical formalism and an interpretation, which contains the definition of symbols, measurement assignments, concepts and principles, and an ontology. We present a scheme to classify these different…

Both relativistic mechanics and Newtonian mechanics are based on principles that have ontological implications. We propose a series of formalisms that rigorously define the ontology underlying mechanical theories, in order to clarify and…

A proposal is made for a fundamental theory, in which the history of the universe is constituted of diverse views of itself. Views are attributes of events, and the theory's only be-ables; they comprise information about energy and momentum…

Hume's account of causal judgment presupposes three representational conditions: experiential grounding (ideas must trace to impressions), structured retrieval (association must operate through organized networks exceeding pairwise…

One of the innovative approaches in contemporary philosophical ontology consists in the assumption of a plurality of ontologies based on different metaphysical presuppositions. Such presuppositions involve, among others, the identification…

Possibility theory offers a framework where both Lehmann's "preferential inference" and the more productive (but less cautious) "rational closure inference" can be represented. However, there are situations where the second inference does…

We put forth the idea that Hamilton's equations coincide with deterministic and reversible evolution. We explore the idea from five different perspectives (mathematics, measurements, thermodynamics, information theory and state mapping) and…

The indeterministic character of physical laws is generally considered to be the most important consequence of quantum physics. A deterministic point of view, however, together with the possibility of well defined Hamiltonian trajectories,…

In recent literature, it has become clear that quantum physics does not refute Humeanism. This point has so far been made with respect to Bohms quantum theory. Against this background, this paper seeks to achieve the following four results:…