Neutral monism in modern philosophy and physics

Neutral monism reconsidered

combinatorial relations between them simply come along for free. Which among all these abstract possibilities are concretely instantiated by physics, for example by genuine causal connections between objects? Russell readily admitted this criticism (Demopoulos & Friedman, 1989; Seager, 2006), but Newman is actually endorsing Russell’s real proposal for an enhanced physicalism, in which causal d...

Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics

We offer a framework to represent the roles of empirical and theoretical factors in theory construction, and examine a case study to illustrate how the framework can be used to illuminate central features of scientific reasoning. The case study provides an extension of French and Ladyman’s (1997) analysis of Fritz and Heinz London’s model of superconductivity to accommodate the role of the anal...

Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics

In recent years a growing number of philosophers of science have come to realise that the philosophical foundations of statistical mechanics are not as secure as was once thought. Conceptual problems that had been swept under a carpet of technicalities, or simply ignored, have surfaced, solutions that were accepted are being questioned, and new routes are being explored. Thus, central issues su...

Russell and the Metaphysics of Neutral Monism

Piercing the veil of modern physics: part 2 & philosophy

ion is from many things to extract the common or essential features, and abandon their different and non–essential features. In the long–term and repeated the test of practice, for those essential features having invariance or absoluteness, which can’t use empirical methods to verify in reality, should belong to metaphysical category. And the others belong to the scope of natural science. Mathe...