Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:23:04.858Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Physics by Convention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Clark Glymour
Clark Glymour*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

“It ain't nuthin' until I call it.”

Bill Guthrie, Umpire

Numerous criticisms of Adolf Grünbaum's account of conventions in physics have been published ([1], [2], [3], [4], [13]), and he has replied to most of them ([6], [8]). Nonetheless, there seem to me to be good reasons for offering further criticism. In the first place Grünbaum's philosophy seems to me at least partly an extrapolation of one aspect of the views on conventions developed by Reichenbach and others. Since I think many of the issues which Reichenbach attempted to settle in his various discussions of conventions in physics are genuine and important, and I also think that those aspects of his views on which Grünbaum has focused are among the least satisfactory, it seems important to suggest questions and answers about conventions in physics which may develop more satisfactory Reichenbachian themes. Secondly, Grünbaum's philosophy centers on a distinction, that between extrinsic and intrinsic properties and relations, which has never been made satisfactorily clear either by Grünbaum or by his critics. Until it is clarified we will remain unsure of just what he is claiming and why we should think it true or think it false. Finally, Grünbaum's replies to his critics, especially his most recent reply, [9], involve unusually important claims which fail to be buttressed by the arguments he gives. I have in mind such claims as that we can learn something important about the ontological status of properties and relations by examining descriptions of them, that on (what I take to be) the most straightforward and literal interpretation, the general theory of relativity is inconsistent, and that the foremost advocates of geometrodynamics, Clifford and Wheeler, were and are enmeshed in contradiction. My own view is that all of these claims are dubious or false, but I shall be less concerned with establishing their falsity than with discrediting the arguments offered for them.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , September 1972 , pp. 322 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 by The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1] Bowman, P., and Ellis, B. “Conventionality in Distant Simultaneity.” Philosophy of Science 34 (1967): 116–136.Google Scholar
[2] Demopoulos, W. “On the Relation of Topological to Metrical Structure.” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 4. Edited by M. Radner and S. Winokur. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970.Google Scholar
[3] Earman, J. “Are Spatial and Temporal Congruence Conventional ?” General Relativity and Gravitation 1 (1970): 143–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] Fine, A. “Reflections on a Relational Theory of Space.” Synthese 22 (1971): 448–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5] Geroch, R. “Topology in General Relativity.” Journal of Mathematical Physics 8 (1967); 782–786.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6] Glymour, C. “Topology, Cosmology and Convention,” forthcoming in Synthese.Google Scholar
[7] Grünbaum, A. Geometry and Chronometry in Philosophical Perspective. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968.Google Scholar
[8] Grünbaum, A. Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. New York: Knopf, 1965.Google Scholar
[9] Grünbaum, A. “Space, Time and Falsifiability.” Philosophy of Science 37 (1970): 469–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[10] Kochen, S., and Specker, E. “The Problem of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics.” Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics 17 (1967): 59–88.Google Scholar
[11] Kulkarni, R. “Curvature and Metric.” Annals of Mathematics 91 (1970): 311–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[12] Laugwitz, D. Differential and Riemannian Geometry. Translated by F. Steinhardt. New York: Academic Press, 1965.Google Scholar
[13] Massey, G. “Toward a Clarification of Grünbaum's Concept of Intrinsic Metric.” Philosophy of Science 37 (1969): 331–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[14] Poincaré, H. Science and Hypothesis. New York: Dover, 1952.Google Scholar
[15] Putnam, H. “An Examination of Grunbaum's Philosophy of Geometry.” In Philosophy of Science, The Delaware Seminar, vol. 2, edited by B. Baumein, pp. 205–255. New York: Interscience, 1963.Google Scholar
[16] Reichenbach, H. Experience and Prediction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939.Google Scholar
[17] Reichenbach, H. The Philosophy of Space and Time. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1938.Google Scholar
[18] van Fraassen, B. “On Massey's Explication of Grünbaum's Conception of Metric.” Philosophy of Science 36 (1969): 346–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[19] Winnie, J. “Special Relativity Without One-Way Velocity Assumptions.” Philosophy of Science 37 (1970): 81–99, 223–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[20] Wolf, J. Spaces of Constant Curvature. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.Google Scholar