Higher Seminar in Philosophy of Science: Samuel Fletcher (Oxford)

Seminar

Date: Thursday 24 April 2025

Time: 13.15 – 15.00

Location: D700

Models of Dependence

Abstract

Scientific practice is replete with discussions of one thing, quantity, or phenomena depending on another. Sometimes this is causal dependence, but sometimes it denotes something more metaphysical: how the less fundamental depend on the more fundamental. Yet, unlike causal dependence, there has not been so much explicit formal modeling of dependence.

This has led some philosophers to be skeptical that "fundamental" or "primitive" have any special interpretative significance at all. What difference does it make in scientific reasoning, in the end? I answer this question by developing such a formal model for the case of determination and show that it makes a difference to counterfactual reasoning with a theory.

I then show how this illuminates a debate in the 2000s in the philosophy of physics about the time-reversal invariance of electromagnetism.

Last updated: April 22, 2025

Source: Department of Philosophy

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