Interpreting Quantum Gravity ∗ Dean Rickles †

In recent times physicists and philosophers of physics have tended to tread very different paths, and they have generally been a little suspicious of one another. As Michael Redhead points out in the first of his Tarner Lectures, “many physicists would dismiss the sort of question that philosophers of physics tackle as irrelevant to what they see themselves as doing” while “philosophers generally regard physicists as naive people, who do physics in an uncritical way” (1996, pp. 1-2). Reichenbach expressed much the same point even more strongly, suggesting that there is a “mutual contempt in which each misunderstands the purposes of the other’s endeavours” (1958, p. xi). This hasn’t always been the case, of course. As Reichenbach goes on to say, “[t]he classical philosophers had a close connection with the science of their times” (loc. cit.). The division between physics and philosophy is a fairly recent thing. In addition to this, historically, each time a fundamental revolution has occurred in physics—e.g. Newtonian mechanics; the relativity theories; quantum theory, etc...—there has generally been an associated shift to a more critical, reflective attitude towards theory construction. Kuhn appears to suggest that such a shift is necessary for scientific change to occur at all: ∗ c © D. Rickles, 2005. To appear in Studies in the History & Philosophy of Modern Physics (December, 2005). †Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada. email: [email protected].