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Does an Adequate Physical Theory Demand a Primitive Ontology?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Alyssa Ney  and
Kathryn Phillips
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Abstract

Configuration space representations have utility in physics but are not generally taken to have ontological significance. We examine one salient reason to think configuration space representations fail to be relevant in determining the fundamental ontology of a physical theory. This is based on a claim due to several authors (Allori, Dürr, Goldstein, Tumulka, and Zanghì) that fundamental theories must have primitive ontologies. This claim would,if correct, have broad ramifications for how to read metaphysics from physical theory. We survey ways of understanding the argument for a primitive ontology in order to assess the case against configuration space realism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 454 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

We would like to thank the audience of the 2011 Boulder Conference on the History and Philosophy of Physics, especially Valia Allori, as well as two anonymous referees for this journal for generous feedback.

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