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Curie’s Truism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

John D. Norton
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Abstract

Curie’s principle asserts that every symmetry of a cause manifests as a symmetry of the effect. It can be formulated as a tautology that is vacuous until it is instantiated. However, instantiation requires us to know the correct way to map causal terminology onto the terms of a science. Causal metaphysics has failed to provide a unique, correct way to carry out the mapping. Thus, successful or unsuccessful instantiation merely reflects our freedom of choice in the mapping.

Type
Curie’s Principle
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 5 , December 2016 , pp. 1014 - 1026
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I thank my co-symposiasts, Elena Castellani, Jenann Ismael, and Bryan Roberts, for stimulating discussion.

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