Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-5jtmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-20T13:01:04.783Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Structure and Equivalence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Thomas William Barrett
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It has been suggested that we can tell whether two theories are equivalent by comparing the structure that they ascribe to the world. If two theories posit different structures, then they must be inequivalent. The aim of this article is to evaluate the extent to which this desideratum holds for the different standards of equivalence that are currently on the table.

Information

Type
Physical Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 87 , Issue 5: PSA 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II Symposia Papers , December 2020 , pp. 1184 - 1196
Copyright
Copyright © 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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

Thanks to Seb de Haro, Neil Dewar, Hans Halvorson, Laurenz Hudetz, and Jim Weatherall for helpful discussion.

References

Barrett, T. W. 2015. “On the Structure of Classical Mechanics.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (4): 801–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, T. W.. 2017. “What Do Symmetries Tell Us about Structure? Unpublished manuscript, University of California.Google Scholar
Barrett, T. W.. 2019. “Equivalent and Inequivalent Formulations of Classical Mechanics. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (4): 1167–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, T. W., and Halvorson, H.. 2016a. “Glymour and Quine on Theoretical Equivalence.” Journal of Philosophical Logic 45 (5): 467–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, T. W., and Halvorson, H.. 2016b. “Morita Equivalence.” Review of Symbolic Logic 9 (3): 556–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curiel, E. 2014. “Classical Mechanics Is Lagrangian: It Is Not Hamiltonian.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (2): 269–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eilenberg, S., and Lane, S. Mac. 1942. “Group Extensions and Homology.” Annals of Mathematics 43(4): 757–831.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eilenberg, S., and Lane, S. Mac. 1945. “General Theory of Natural Equivalences.” Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 58 (2): 231–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geroch, R. 1972. “Einstein Algebras.” Communications in Mathematical Physics 26 (4): 271–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halvorson, H. 2012. “What Scientific Theories Could Not Be.” Philosophy of Science 79 (2): 183–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halvorson, H.. 2016. “Scientific Theories.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science, ed. Humphreys, P., 585–608. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hudetz, L. 2019. “Definable Categorical Equivalence.” Philosophy of Science 86 (1): 47–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, J. 2009. “The ‘structure’ of Physics: A Case Study.” Journal of Philosophy 106:57–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenstock, S., Barrett, T. W., and Weatherall, J. O.. 2015. “On Einstein Algebras and Relativistic Spacetimes.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science B 52:309–16.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. C. 1980. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weatherall, J. O. 2016. “Are Newtonian Gravitation and Geometrized Newtonian Gravitation Theoretically Equivalent?” Erkenntnis 81 (5): 1073–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weatherall, J. O.. 2019. “Theoretical Equivalence in Physics.” Philosophy Compass 14 (5).Google Scholar
Winnie, J. 1986. “Invariants and Objectivity: A Theory with Applications to Relativity and Geometry.” In From Quarks to Quasars, ed. Colodny, R. G., 71–180. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar