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An Awkward Symmetry: The Tension between Particle Ontologies and Permutation Invariance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Benjamin Jantzen
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Abstract

Physical theories continue to be interpreted in terms of particles. The idea of a particle has required modification for successive theories but remains central to scientific explanation. Particle ontologies also have the virtue of explaining basic epistemic features of the world and so remain appealing for the scientific realist. However, particle ontologies are untenable when coupled with the empirically necessary postulate of permutation invariance—the claim that permuting the roles of particles in a representation of a physical state results in a representation of the same state. I demonstrate that any permutation invariant theory is incompatible with a particle ontology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 39 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I am grateful to John Earman, Jeremy Butterfield, Bryan Roberts, Peter Spirtes, and Kristina Jantzen for valuable discussion and criticism of previous drafts of this article. I am particularly indebted to Clark Glymour for helping me to clarify the logical structure of my argument, to two anonymous referees for their careful reading and insightful critique, and to Mara Harrell for guiding the development of the ideas reported here.

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