In the recent philosophical debate about the relationship between symmetries and physical equivalence, two approaches have been distinguished: motivationalism and interpretationalism. In this paper, I point out that there are variants of interpretationalism that have not been taken into account by the proponents of motivationalism. I also argue that some of these overlooked variants of interpretationalism are not prone to the motivationalists’ criticism and overall are the most attractive positions available.

In the recent philosophical literature, several counterexamples to the interpretative principle that symmetry-related models are physically equivalent have been suggested The Oxford handbook of philosophy of physics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013, Noûs 52:946–981, 2018; Fletcher in Found Phys 50:228–249, 2020). Arguments based on these counterexamples can be understood as arguments from scientific practice of roughly the following form: because in scientific practice such-and-such symmetry-related models are treated as representing distinct physical situations, these models indeed represent distinct physical situations. In (...) this paper, a strategy for analysing arguments of this type is presented and applied to the examples that can be found in the literature. I argue that if we are exclusively interested in models understood as representing entire possible worlds, arguments from scientific practice should involve some additional assumptions to guarantee they are relevant for models understood in this way. However, none of the examples presented in the literature satisfy all these additional assumptions, which leads to the conclusion that arguments from scientific practice based on these examples do not undermine the interpretative principle that different symmetry-related models represent the same possible world. (shrink)

Absolute velocities in Newtonian mechanics are commonly regarded as unmeasurable. Roberts (Br J Philos Sci 59(2):143–168, 2008) provides a justification for this thesis which appeals to the observational indistinguishability of boost-related models of Newtonian mechanics. Middleton and Murgueitio Ramírez (Australas J Philos, 2020) criticise his argumentation by pointing out that his analysis of the notion of measurement is too restrictive, and that, under a weaker analysis (based on counterfactuals), absolute velocities are measurable. Jacobs (Australas J Philos, 2020) opposes their view, (...) arguing that, on a properly formulated counterfactual-based account of measurement, absolute velocities are unmeasurable. However, in his argument, observational indistinguishability plays no role, even though, intuitively, it is very relevant for the issue of (un)measurability. This paper’s aim is to bring observational indistinguishability back to this discussion. I build upon the observation that there is an analogy between possible views on knowledge and justification on the one hand, and on measurement on the other. In particular, I explore the distinction between externalist and internalist approaches. Counterfactual-based accounts are all externalist, whereas the observational indistinguishability of boost-related models becomes relevant if we are interested in an internalist concept of measurement. (shrink)

The article investigates the relations between Hausdorff and non-Hausdorff manifolds as objects of general relativity. We show that every non-Hausdorff manifold can be seen as a result of gluing together some Hausdorff manifolds. In the light of this result, we investigate a modal interpretation of a non-Hausdorff differential manifold, according to which it represents a bundle of alternative space-times, all of which are compatible with a given initial data set.

In this paper, I challenge the distinction between “epistemic” and “ontic” states propounded by Harrigan and Spekkens (Found Phys 40:125–157, 2010) by pointing out that because knowledge is factive, any state that represents someone’s knowledge about a physical system thereby also represents something about the physical system itself, so there is no such thing as “mere knowledge”. This criticism leads to the reformulation of the main question of the debate: instead of asking whether a given state is ontic or epistemic, (...) we should instead ask whether a given change of a state is ontic or epistemic. In particular, in the context of quantum mechanics, one can ask whether the collapse of the quantum state could be understood as an epistemically successful change of the observer’s beliefs about the complete state of the system that is not associated with any change in the physical reality. I argue that the answer to this question should be in the negative because it is possible that, in a series of measurements, the collapse rule tells us to update a certain state to a different one and then back to the same state; if both of these updates are merely changes of our beliefs, then they could not both be epistemically successful. (shrink)

In this paper non-Hausdorff manifolds as potential basic objects of General Relativity are investigated. One can distinguish four stages of identifying an appropriate mathematical structure to describe physical systems: kinematic, dynamical, physical reasonability, and empirical. The thesis of this paper is that in the context of General Relativity, non-Hausdorff manifolds pass the first two stages, as they enable one to define the basic notions of differential geometry needed to pose the problem of the evolution-distribution of matter and are not in (...) conflict with the Einstein equations. With regard to the third stage, various potential conflicts with physical reasonability conditions are considered with a tentative conclusion that non-Hausdorff manifolds are more likely to pass this stage than is typically assumed. When dealing with some of these problems, the modal interpretation of non-Hausdorff manifolds is invoked, according to which they represent bundles of alternative possible spacetimes rather than single spacetimes. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the Hole Argument can be formulated without using the notion of isomorphism, and for this reason it is not threatened by the criticism of Halvorson and Manchak (Br J Philos Sci, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1086/719193). Following Earman and Norton (Br J Philos Sci 38, pp. 515–525, 1987), I divide the Hole Argument into two steps: the proof of the Gauge Theorem and the transition from the Gauge Theorem to the conclusion of radical indeterminism. In the analaysis (...) of the first step, I argue that the Gauge Theorem does not rely on the notion of isomorphism but on the notion of the diffeomorphism-invariance of the equations of local spacetime theories; however, for this approach to work, the definition of local spacetime theories needs certain amendments with respect to Earman and Norton’s formulation. In the analysis of the second step, I postulate that we should use the notion of radical indeterminism instead of indeterminism simpliciter and that we should not decide in advance what kind of maps are to be used in comparing models. Instead, we can tentatively choose some kind of maps for this purpose and check whether a given choice leads to radical indeterminism involving empirically indistinguishable models. In this way, the use of the notion of isomorphism is also avoided in the second step of the Hole Argument. A general picture is that physical equivalence can be established by means of an iterative procedure in which we examine various candidate classes of maps, and, depending on the outcomes, we need to broaden or narrow these classes. The Hole Argument can be viewed as a particular instance of this procedure. (shrink)

One of the conclusions that Bell drew from his famous inequality was that any hidden variable theory that satisfies Local Causality is incompatible with the predictions of Quantum Mechanics for Bell’s Experiment. However, Local Causality does not appear in the derivation of Bell’s inequality. Instead, two other assumptions are used, namely Factorizability and Settings Independence. Therefore, in order to establish the mentioned Bell’s conclusion, we need to relate these two assumptions to Local Causality. The prospects for doing so turn out (...) to depend on the assumed location of the hidden states that appear in Bell’s inequality. In this paper, I consider the following two views on such states: (1) that they are states of the two-particle system at the moment of preparation, and (2) that they are states of thick slices of the past light cones of measurements. I argue that straightforward attempts to establish Bell’s conclusion fail in both approaches. Then, I consider three refined attempts, which I also criticise, and I propose a new way of establishing Bell’s conclusion that combines intuitions underlying several previous approaches. (shrink)

We show that several logics of common belief and common knowledge are not only complete, but also strongly complete, hence compact. These logics involve a weakened monotonicity axiom, and no other restriction on individual belief. The semantics is of the ordinary fixed-point type.

This paper discusses perspectivism and relationalism in the two versions of Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM): that initiated by Rovelli (Int. J. Theor. Phys., 35(8), 1637–1678 1996) and the other, by Adlam and Rovelli (Philos. Phys., 1(1) 2023). To this end, we offer a substantial discussion of this interpretation. We investigate the issue of the disagreement of results between different observers; distinguish four senses of agreement: strong, weak, very weak, and perspectival; and argue that the old version guarantees only the very (...) weak and perspectival agreement, whereas the new version guarantees the weak agreement as well. The problem that individuals in RQM need to be propertyless when they do not interact is also investigated. Concerning the issue of probabilities in RQM, we argue that to express probabilities involving events relative to different systems, a new kind of probability spaces needs to be devised. The final problem that we identify concerns underspecified dynamics; we argue that some additional postulates are indispensable to make RQM’s dynamics fully specified. The last two points lead to the conclusion that, contrary to declarations of RQM proponents, this interpretation requires some modifications of quantum formalism and not merely conceptual changes. Finally, concerning the problem of testimony, while the new version of RQM was devised to solve it, we argue that in the old version, this problem can be alleviated to the extent that perspectivism permits. (shrink)

The Puzzle of the Hats is a betting arrangement which seems to show that a Dutch book can be made against a group of rational players with common priors who act in the common interest and have full trust in the other players’ rationality. But we show that appearances are misleading—no such Dutch book can be made. There are four morals. First, what can be learned from the puzzle is that there is a class of situations in which credences and (...) betting rates diverge. Second, there is an analogy between ways of dealing with situations of this kind and different policies for sequential choice. Third, there is an analogy with strategic voting, showing that the common interest is not always served by expressing how things seem to you in social decision-making. And fourth, our analysis of the Puzzle of the Hats casts light on a recent controversy about the Dutch book argument for the Sleeping Beauty. (shrink)

This paper investigates Bourbaki’s concepts of set-theoretical structure and isomorphism. First, I introduce Bourbaki’s formalism in a modern guise. Second, I show that there is a one-to-one correspondence (up to logical equivalence) between theories consisting of finitely many axioms expressed in some formal (first-order or higher-order) language and t-species of set-theoretical structure—that is, species of structure S which are transportable in the sense that the extension of the predicate “being a structure of species S” is closed under isomorphisms. Third, I (...) examine the significance of the formal definitions and results presented in this paper for the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of the empirical sciences. In particular, I argue that: (1) since definitions of predicates “being a structure of species S” are conservative and eliminable relative to ZFC, such predicates can be used to achieve a reduction of (large parts of) mathematics to ZFC; (2) since t-species of structure are transportable, they can provide a basis for a set-theoretical form of structuralism by enabling us to “forget” those aspects of structures that are not isomorphism-invariant; and (3) the correspondence between t-species of structure and formal axiomatic theories shows that there is no deep divide between the so-called semantic and syntactic approaches in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Les travaux du Comité public de suivi Le comité a été créé le 12 avril 2016. À cette occasion, il a annoncé le dépôt d’un rapport de suivi à l’occasion du premier anniversaire du dépôt du rapport de la Commission Charbonneau. Dans les derniers mois, le comité s’est penché sur les initiatives répondant aux recommandations de la Commission, en étudiant les informations rendues publiques sur ce sujet. Aidé d’une équipe...

In this paper, it is argued that, contrary to some suggestions in the philosophical literature, dispositions cannot replace laws in the description of the physical world. If for a certain type of physical situation a well-working law-based account is available, then it is not possible to describe that situation equally well in terms of dispositions. Using an example consisting of four laws (Coulomb’s law, Newton’s law of gravitation, the rule for the composition of forces and Newton’s second law), it is (...) shown that when one attempts to replace a law-based account with a disposition-based account, the latter turns out to be either less informative or inferior with respect to theoretical virtues, such as simplicity, unification, non-triviality of predictions and explanatory power. Laws are also better suited to deal with interactions and their screening off. Using inference to the best explanation, one can conclude from this comparison that it is laws rather than dispositions that should be included in our ontological picture of nature. (shrink)

Background/ObjectiveSeveral studies have examined the impact of Parkinson’s disease on the quality of couples’ relationships. To date, few studies have explored how couples experience their relationship dynamic by taking into account the disease stage. The objectives of this study were to understand the experience of each partner and to study the mechanisms that underlie their couple organization in the advanced stage of PD.MethodsSemistructured individual interviews conducted with fifteen patients and their partners were the subject of a dyadic interpretative phenomenological analysis.ResultsThree (...) themes were identified from the analysis: the first, “A Closeness That Separates,” allows the identification of different patterns of interactions that lead to emotional distancing between the partners; the second, “The Adversity Is Not Unbearable, But Going It Alone Would Be,” emphasizes the importance of how the assisting partner provides support; and the third, “Be Prepared for Anything and Facing an Uncertain Future,” reveals the extent and modes of the dyadic regulation of the emotions linked to what the future may hold.ConclusionPsychological support is important to help couples express both their feelings and their respective needs in the evolving context of PD. (shrink)

Collaborative practices and patient -as- partner approaches are expanding in healthcare. The involvement of patients in the training of healthcare professionals appears as an opportunity for the development of such training and contributes to the practical experience of working with patients alongside the theoretical and scientific aspects of training. However, although the theories underpinning patient involvement in training are well developed, to date theire have been few practical applications to contextual situations, and there is a need to reflect on the (...) partnership development process. Based on the theories of patient -as- partner within interprofessional collaboration in healthcare, we will present the pedagogical engineering of a co-constructed course involving patient as partners for pharmacy students. We performed a cross-analysis of patients' and students' perceptions of the session. (shrink)

One of the modern approaches to the laws of nature regards them as relations between universals. The most advanced version of such an approach has been presented by D. M. Armstrong. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct and interpret Armstrong’s conception but also to evaluate his theory and to point out what expectations from it are inadequate. My point of reference are two objections to Armstrong’s ideas, namely the problems of identification and inference. I claim that Armstrong’s theory (...) in general and his response to both problems in particular are based on some fundamental metaphysical principles, namely: the principle of identity for universals, the principle of non-contradiction, the relational principle of the indiscernibility of identicals and the principle of contingent necessity. The central part of my interpretation shows how from the laws of nature, properly understood, the occurrence of some states of affairs necessarily results provided that these principles are employed. (shrink)

The graph edit distance (GED) measures the dissimilarity between two graphs as the minimal cost of a sequence of elementary operations transforming one graph into another. This measure is fundamental in many areas such as structural pattern recognition or classification. However, exactly computing GED is NP-hard. Among different classes of heuristic algorithms that were proposed to compute approximate solutions, local search based algorithms provide the tightest upper bounds for GED. In this paper, we present K-REFINE and RANDPOST. K-REFINE generalizes and (...) improves an existing local search algorithm and performs particularly well on small graphs. RANDPOST is a general warm start framework that stochastically generates promising initial solutions to be used by any local search based GED algorithm. It is particularly efficient on large graphs. An extensive empirical evaluation demonstrates that both K-REFINE and RANDPOST perform excellently in practice. (shrink)

As Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) enters the mainstream of professional and institutional investment practice, some perplexities arise. Some SRI market participants are well schooled in finance but are hesitative as to how to apply non-financial criteria in the management of portfolios. Governments too are giving SRI more attention and, in some countries, are discussion whether and how to regulate the SRI market. Advocacy groups are targeting SRI projects through media campaigns using political discourse. Many of the pertinent questions that come (...) with these perplexities are of the philosophical or ethical type and concern legitimisation, demarcation of responsibilities, interpretation of norms and policy formulation. The inclusion of non-financial criteria into investment decision-making leads to a ‹puzzle in SRI’ for which this article offers a solution. The puzzle arises when the day-to-day implementation of an SRI-policy coincides with the process of administering justice. Three questions make up that puzzle: (1) what should an␣investor do when allegations arise about a corporation, (2) what should an investor do when a corporation is brought before a court, (3) what should an investor do when a corporation is found guilty by a court. This article argues, by distinguishing between the rationality of the investor and that of the judge, that allegations, court cases or court verdicts should not be reasons to disinvest from a corporation. This article offers examples from investor practice and points out in which way allegations, court cases and court verdicts make sense for investor behaviour. (shrink)

Dans sa Critique du droit politique hégélien , Marx est guidé par la démarche génético-critique de Feuerbach à qui il emprunte une logique de la transposition analogique. Il s'efforce d'y circonscrire « Vidée spécifique de la constitution politique » à travers une lecture minutieuse et patiente des paragraphes 261-313 des Grandes Lignes de la Philosophie du Droit de Hegel à qui il reproche d'insérer le politique dans une structure présupposée : « Hegel donne à sa logique un corps politique; il (...) ne donne pas la logique du corps politique ». En récusant la réponse — « non-critique et mystique » — que Hegel donne à son étude — « lucide » — de la modernité et en introduisant le concept de démocratie — « énigme résolue de toutes les constitutions » — comme inversion du concept hégélien de l'État, la Critique ne nous semble pas parvenir même dans sa timide proclamation de la disparition de l'État à signer une rupture avec Hegel. Hypercritique vis-à-vis Hegel, l'herméneutique marxienne mise en oeuvre dans la Critique partage naïvement les postulats hégéliens.In his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, , Marx is guided by Feuerbach's genetic-critical approach, from whom he borrows a logic of analogical transposition. He attempts to limit "the specific idea of the political constitution" through a careful and patient reading of paragraphs 261-313 of Hegel's Fundamentals of the Philosophy of Right whom he reproaches for the insertion of politics in a presupposed structure: "Hegel gives his logic a political form; he does not provide the logic of political form." In challenging the "non-critical and mystical" answer that Hegel gives to his "lucid" study of modernity, and in introducing the concept of democracy — "the resolved enigma of all constitutions" — as an inversion of the Hegelian concept of the state, the Critique does not strike us with its timid proclamation of the disappearance of the state, as signifying a break with Hegel. Hypercritical of Hegel, the Marxian hermeneutic outlined in the Critique naively shares Hegelian presuppositions. (shrink)

À la faveur de quelle différence, en vertu de quelle altérité, la religion positive peut-elle, sans en trahir la nudité et sans se dissiper en apparence, rebondir jusque dans la raison mise en liberté ? Que l’on prenne au sérieux cette question : la religion positive apparaîtra peut-être moins comme une figure illusoire, presque maléfique, de la religion vraie, moins comme ce simulacre de la raison que le jeune Hegel ordonnait parfois d'« évincer » [verdrängen, que comme un quelque chose (...) d'autre qui est autant le secours que l'hostilité que rencontre la religion lorsqu’elle « extériorise [...] son existence » [aüssert [...] ihr Dasein]. Béance incommensurable du Positif !How can reason, when it is set in freedom, be still intimately affected by positive religion, without making it into a mere appearance, and without betraying its otherness ? As soon as the question is taken seriously, one realizes that positive religion is less a delusive, even mischievous form of the true religion, or a semblance of reason, which Hegel demanded to expell, than something quite different which is both helpful and hostile towards religion when it "externalizes [...] its existence". Incommensurable abyss of positivity ! (shrink)

Using formal logic, Reconstructing the Past seeks to clarify and resolve the methodological issues that arise when biologists try to answer such questions as whether human beings are more closely related to chimps than they are to gorillas. It explores the case for considering the philosophical idea of simplicity/parsimony as a useful principle for evaluating taxonomic theories of evolutionary relationships. Bringing together philosophy, biology, and statistics, Sober builds a general framework for understanding the circumstances in which parsimony makes sense as (...) a tool of phylogenetic inference.Elliott Sober is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of The Nature of Selection. (shrink)

This paper investigates various properties that may by possessed by quantum states, which are believed to be specifically “quantum” and their opposites. It also considers their “absolute” counterparts in the following sense: a given state has a given property absolutely if after an arbitrary unitary transformation it still possesses it. The known relations between the listed properties and between their absolute counterparts are summarized. It is proven that the only two-qubit state that has zero quantum discord absolutely is the maximally (...) mixed state. Finally, related conceptual issues concerning the terms “classical” and “quantum” are discussed. (shrink)

Énoncée comme « impératif catégorique » de l'acte d'appropriation ordonné à l'avènement de l’« Homme total », la révolution prolétarienne dérive dans les écrits du jeune Marx d'un choix éthique s'alignant sur une ontologie de la vie moulée dans la pensée spéculative d'origine hégélienne.In the writings of young Karl Marx, the proletarian revolution is formulated as the "categorical imperative" of the appropriation act towards the coming of "totally unalienated Man"; and it derives from an ethical choice, based on an ontology (...) moulded in speculative thought from hegelian origin. (shrink)

At the end of his Frankfurt period, the young Hegel carries on the task that he had undertook in his previous research: "to think pure life". We expect to achieve this task by subordinating philosophy to religion. But such a denial of philosophy is not an easy introduction to the experience of the Spirit, which is, according to the Systemfragment, the "vivifying law".

Les treize articles relatifs au premier thème analysent l'émergence ou la diffusion, encore difficile, de l'idée nationale dans l'Italie post unitaire, en particulier à travers la multiplication des statues de Dante, les campagnes militaires, souvent malheureuses, et les liens entre la représentation de la hiérarchie des pouvoirs et des classes sociales, et leur pouvoir politique effectif, à l'occasin de l'Exposition universelle de Milan en 1906. Trois questions sont privilégiées. La n...