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Idealizations and Approximations in Physics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Robert John Schwartz
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Extract

While the use of so-called idealizations in science has been widely recognized for many years, the philosophical problems that arise from this use have received relatively little attention. Even a cursory reading of the philosophical literature devoted to these problems ([1]; [2]; [4], pp. 160–171; [5]; [7], pp. 54–63) reveals that the following questions remain unanswered: In general, what, if any, are the distinguishing characteristics of idealizations? More specifically, do idealizations have any distinguishing syntactic or semantic characteristics? In addition to these questions there exist the following pragmatic questions, questions relating to the ways in which idealizations are used in science: How are idealizations used in explanations? (see [2]). Do these explanations have any peculiar characteristics—characteristics not shared by deductive-nomological (D-N) explanations? If we assume that (at least some types of) idealizations are false (or contain false components) or “do not obtain,” how is it that they can have any explanatory power? (see [7], p. 58). Further, there are questions of more general philosophic concern. How do the problems of idealizations relate to those of simplicity, for an idealization seems to be, in some sense, a type of simplification? How do the problems of ideal laws and theories relate to the general problems of scientific laws and theories?

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 595 - 603
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1978

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References

[1] Barr, W. F. “A Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Idealizations in Science.” Philosophy of Science 38 (1971): 258–272.10.1086/288360CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2] Barr, W. F. “A Pragmatic Analysis of Idealizations in Physics.” Philosophy of Science 41 (1974): 48–64.10.1086/288569CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3] Good, R. H. and Nelson, T. J. Classical Theory of Electric and Magnetic Fields. New York: Academic Press, 1971.Google Scholar
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[7] Rudner, R. S. Philosophy of Social Science. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1966.Google Scholar