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The Sui Generis Conventionality of Simultaneity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Laurent A. Beauregard
Laurent A. Beauregard*
Affiliation:
Reed College
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Abstract

In this paper, I elucidate the main points involved in the question of the non-triviality of the conventionality of simultaneity within the kinematics of special relativity. I argue that there is an important distinction to be made between the inherited component and the sui generis component of the conventionality of simultaneity. The factual core of the kinematics of special relativity is explored, and it is shown that the Round-Trip Clock Retardation effect obtains if, and only if Winnie's Passage Time Principle holds. Some consequences of this fundamental fact are then explored. In particular, Grünbaum's view that the epistemological conventionality of simultaneity is logically prior to the physical inter-frame relativity of simultaneity is found to be based largely on what I call the inherited component of the former. Finally, a question is raised as to the very self-consistency of the claim, made by Ellis and Bowman, that standard signal synchrony and slow-transport synchrony are logically independent. In some concluding remarks, the author's general agreement with Grünbaum's conception of bridled conventionalism is indicated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , December 1976 , pp. 469 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

The author wishes to thank Wesley C. Salmon for helpful communication regarding an earlier draft of this paper. Earlier correspondence with Peter Bowman and with Adolf Grünbaum have been instrumental in focusing my sui generis fixation. Finally, this work is heavily indebted to the work of John Winnie.

References

REFERENCES

Beauregard, L. A. “On the Conventionality of Simultaneity within the Kinematics of Special Relativity,” (unpublished).Google Scholar
Ellis, B. and Bowman, P. “Conventionality in Distant Simultaneity.” Philosophy of Science 34 (1967): 116–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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