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The Metaphysics Within Physics
What fundamental account of the world is implicit in physical theory? Physics straightforwardly postulates quarks and electrons, but what of the more intangible elements, such as laws of nature, universals, causation and the direction of time? Do they have a place in the physical structure of the world? Tim Maudlin argues that the ontology derived from physics takes a form quite different from those most commonly defended by philosophers. Physics postulates irreducible fundamental laws, eschews universals, does not require a fundamental notion of causation, and makes room for the passage of time. In a series of linked essays The Metaphysics Within Physics outlines an approach to metaphysics opposed to the Humean reductionism that motivates much analytical metaphysics.
197 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 19, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 2, 2022
A nice collection of papers/essays on ontology in physics.
November 3, 2015
Good collection of essays on philosophy of physics, but as a book it's slightly disconnected. Some might also be disappointed that Maudlin's solution to a variety of problems is just to go for primitivism (about laws of nature, for instance).
May 4, 2022
pretty good
You don’t find out until after you buy it that this is a collection of old published papers repackaged as a book. Normally such a deception would get an automatic 2 rating. There have to be consequences for dishonesty. But in this case I will make an exception.
The papers hang together well. The lack of a need for ontological reductionism. The limitations of Humean style dogmas. The non seperability inherent in quantum theory and its challenges for traditional ontologies. The inconsistency of fibre bundles and gauge theories with a lot of traditional ‘metaphysical’ concepts and assumptions - which means tough luck for the traditional concepts and assumptions. Some discussions on counter-factuals and causation and on the possibility or otherwise of time travel. I was hoping/looking for more on the perplexities of quantum theory - other than the non seperability (entanglement ) which is already perplexing enough. But you don’t always get everything you want.
His approach generally is that the physics is a given. The discussion/analysis comes after this. But not entirely. Which sounds about right.
Bubbling over with questions, ideas and curiosity. Open minded. No dogmatic assertions of what MUST be the case here.
Great to read. What’s not to love.
You don’t find out until after you buy it that this is a collection of old published papers repackaged as a book. Normally such a deception would get an automatic 2 rating. There have to be consequences for dishonesty. But in this case I will make an exception.
The papers hang together well. The lack of a need for ontological reductionism. The limitations of Humean style dogmas. The non seperability inherent in quantum theory and its challenges for traditional ontologies. The inconsistency of fibre bundles and gauge theories with a lot of traditional ‘metaphysical’ concepts and assumptions - which means tough luck for the traditional concepts and assumptions. Some discussions on counter-factuals and causation and on the possibility or otherwise of time travel. I was hoping/looking for more on the perplexities of quantum theory - other than the non seperability (entanglement ) which is already perplexing enough. But you don’t always get everything you want.
His approach generally is that the physics is a given. The discussion/analysis comes after this. But not entirely. Which sounds about right.
Bubbling over with questions, ideas and curiosity. Open minded. No dogmatic assertions of what MUST be the case here.
Great to read. What’s not to love.
January 12, 2017
I will not pretend to have understood the whole work. Coming to this with a philosophy background, much of the physics and mathematics was beyond me. However, the conceptual analysis is something I am much more familiar with, and throughout it is extremely strong, dealing in a convincing way with many of the less compelling arguments bandied about in the pop-science literature, and indeed in serious academic works. The essay on time is particularly convincing, and worth reading for anyone with an interest in the subject.
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December 8, 2009i've been reading this book for over a year.
December 11, 2022
This volume collects several papers by Maudlin that together expound his particular brand of metaphysical realism. Maudlin’s views here are ones I mostly disagree with, but I think that for the most part he argues them well.
The first two chapters present an argument for a non-Humean account of scientific laws. Maudlin posits the fundamental laws of physics as ontological primitives, in contrast to the view of people like David Lewis that laws are “just” descriptions of regularities that supervene on the sum total of particular facts about the world. Maudlin argues that this is needed to allow laws to play the role they do in scientific explanations and in evaluation of counterfactuals. For what it’s worth, I think Maudlin’s account of the way explanations and counterfactuals are typically used and understood is perceptive and, more or less, correct. But it seems to me that the ontological primitiveness of the laws is doing none of the work for him in that account - it works just as well if the laws are understood as nothing but pithy generalizations of matters of particular fact.
Chapter three is, I think, the most novel contribution here. It concerns the old question of the existence of universals. Maudlin argues that universals do not exist, and sketches an alternative based on the concept of a gauge theory from physics. I found this approach interesting, even if, as someone of an old-school positivist bent, I think that debates like this one are moot.
I found chapter four, concerning time, the least persuasive of the bunch. Here, Maudlin’s aim is to defend the notions that “time passes” and that the directionality of time is an ontological primitive. The essay, in my opinion, veers between facile strawmen and meaningless semantics. If there’s a substantive claim being made here it’s that even in the absence of the entropic arrow of time, the macroscopic asymmetry between past and future would still be no puzzle. I confess, I came away unsure whether Maudlin is actually making that claim - if he is, I think he’s simply wrong; if he’s not, then I fail to see any point to much of the discussion.
Chapter five takes up the topic of causation and finds Maudlin arguing against the Humean analysis of causation in terms of counterfactuals. Instead, he proposes an understanding of causation based on (ontologically primitive) laws, and explains the apparent relation between causation and counterfactuals by their both stemming from laws. As with his analysis of counterfactuals, I think that he is right on the money in his account of how people, in practice, think about causation. But once again, I don’t think his metaphysics has got anything to do with that; these are matters of psychology and of pragmatism, not of fundamental philosophy.
Chapter six offers a summary of the foregoing and ties Maudlin’s view of time to his view of laws. It’s followed by a brief epilogue in which he - quite correctly - criticizes a particular thought experiment sometimes used in metaphysical argumentation, the “problem of homogeneous spinning discs” introduced by Kripke.
The first two chapters present an argument for a non-Humean account of scientific laws. Maudlin posits the fundamental laws of physics as ontological primitives, in contrast to the view of people like David Lewis that laws are “just” descriptions of regularities that supervene on the sum total of particular facts about the world. Maudlin argues that this is needed to allow laws to play the role they do in scientific explanations and in evaluation of counterfactuals. For what it’s worth, I think Maudlin’s account of the way explanations and counterfactuals are typically used and understood is perceptive and, more or less, correct. But it seems to me that the ontological primitiveness of the laws is doing none of the work for him in that account - it works just as well if the laws are understood as nothing but pithy generalizations of matters of particular fact.
Chapter three is, I think, the most novel contribution here. It concerns the old question of the existence of universals. Maudlin argues that universals do not exist, and sketches an alternative based on the concept of a gauge theory from physics. I found this approach interesting, even if, as someone of an old-school positivist bent, I think that debates like this one are moot.
I found chapter four, concerning time, the least persuasive of the bunch. Here, Maudlin’s aim is to defend the notions that “time passes” and that the directionality of time is an ontological primitive. The essay, in my opinion, veers between facile strawmen and meaningless semantics. If there’s a substantive claim being made here it’s that even in the absence of the entropic arrow of time, the macroscopic asymmetry between past and future would still be no puzzle. I confess, I came away unsure whether Maudlin is actually making that claim - if he is, I think he’s simply wrong; if he’s not, then I fail to see any point to much of the discussion.
Chapter five takes up the topic of causation and finds Maudlin arguing against the Humean analysis of causation in terms of counterfactuals. Instead, he proposes an understanding of causation based on (ontologically primitive) laws, and explains the apparent relation between causation and counterfactuals by their both stemming from laws. As with his analysis of counterfactuals, I think that he is right on the money in his account of how people, in practice, think about causation. But once again, I don’t think his metaphysics has got anything to do with that; these are matters of psychology and of pragmatism, not of fundamental philosophy.
Chapter six offers a summary of the foregoing and ties Maudlin’s view of time to his view of laws. It’s followed by a brief epilogue in which he - quite correctly - criticizes a particular thought experiment sometimes used in metaphysical argumentation, the “problem of homogeneous spinning discs” introduced by Kripke.
July 8, 2018
Using wildly different analogies (temporal change rates are like currency change rates) proves nothing.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews