{"title":"A French view of London","authors":"Steven French","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.02.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.02.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In 1939 London and Bauer published a ‘little book’ that shaped the debate over the role of consciousness in resolving the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Mistakenly understood as merely summarising von Neumann’s account, both sides in the debate failed to appreciate its phenomenological underpinnings. London not only originally studied phenomenology but continued thinking about and discussing this approach in the years leading up to the publication of his work with Bauer, most notably with Gurwitsch, who likewise had a dual background in phenomenological philosophy and physics. In the book, <em>A Phenomenological Approach to Quantum Mechanics: Cutting the Chain of Correlations</em> (French, 2023), the historical background to London and Bauer’s work is set out prior to situating it within the context of Husserl’s philosophy as a whole. It is concluded that the London and Bauer phenomenological account offers a potentially fruitful way forward through various dichotomies, such as that between psi-ontic and psi-epistemic accounts and between interpretational and reconstructive approaches more generally, as well as with regard to understanding quantum physics more generally.</div><div>In this paper London and Bauer’s insistence that quantum mechanics should be seen as a theory of knowledge in its own right is emphasized, where this must be taken as phenomenologically grounded. Hopefully this work will be viewed as contributing to a revised phenomenological understanding of modern physics, standing alongside Ryckman’s <em>The Reign of Relativity</em> (Ryckman, 2005) and Berghofer and Wiltsche’s edited collection <em>Phenomenological Approaches to Physics</em> (Berghofer & Wiltsche, 2020).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"110 ","pages":"Pages 30-39"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143562953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bolstering superficial measurement robustness with community-based data foundations","authors":"Vadim Keyser , Hannah Howland","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.01.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.01.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Robustness analysis is a methodological process of identifying results that converge over a variety of independent identifications, models, measurements, or derivations. In this discussion, we focus on measurement robustness, where convergent results are obtained over different measurement methods, indicating reliable detection. Our aim is to identify a methodological problem with convergent results applicable to measurement practice in inequitable social contexts. We argue that even under ideal function of measurement robustness, there is still a deeper methodological problem about measurement choices and strategies: the ‘sacrifice of representational adequacy for generality’ (SRAG). We detail SRAG and then apply it using two case studies, where convergent measurements conceal pollution masking and pollution burden. Finally, we offer a solution to SRAG through the analysis of robust community-based data practices. By describing the community-led efforts behind Shingle Mountain and the Joppa Environmental Health Project, we illustrate how an effective cross-checking structure can correct measurement goals and strategies, thereby, promoting representational adequacy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"110 ","pages":"Pages 19-29"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143549887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reply: An Order of Things?.","authors":"Hans-Jörg Rheinberger","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"110 ","pages":"Pages 17-18"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143519953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Non-empirical physics from a historical perspective: New pathways in history and philosophy of physics","authors":"Pablo Ruiz de Olano , Richard Dawid , C.D. McCoy","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.01.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.01.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this Special Issue, we explore the rise of non-empirical physics from a historical perspective. This exercise is meant, furthermore, as an attempt to open new pathways in contemporary history and philosophy of physics. We use this introduction to provide the theoretical background necessary to flesh out this program and to appreciate the manner in which the different articles in the collection substantiate it. To do this, we proceed in the following manner. First, we briefly lay out the development of contemporary philosophy of physics, and the manner in which the range of topics covered in the specialized literature expanded over the past few decades. After that, we chronicle the advent of non-empirical physics during the second half of the twentieth century, and we introduce the philosophical debates triggered by this development. These debates, as we show, did introduce new topics of discussion in the literature. However, these discussions did not arise as a deliberate attempt to add new ideas to the philosophy of physics repertoire. Instead, they emerged as a natural consequence of the historical development of physics itself. Taking this observation as our starting point, we argue that engaging with the controversies around non-empirical physics, and with the historical circumstances behind their appearance, provides a more fruitful, more historically grounded approach towards updating the canon of philosophy of physics. We then single out some areas in which further historical work is particularly promising, and we highlight the contributions made by each one of our authors. We conclude by inviting others to join the philosophical program sketched here, and to add their own insights to the ones contained in this Special Issue.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"110 ","pages":"Pages 13-16"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143394976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resisting Newton in provincial France, 1750s–1770s: Opposition from the margins to the Parisian academic community","authors":"Marco Storni","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the eighteenth century, the requirements for participation in scientific life were progressively narrowed, leading to a gradual closure of the community of the learned. This shift was influenced by the dissemination of Newton's natural philosophy across Europe, which catalysed the rejection of previously dominant principles and methods, while heralding the adoption of a new approach, based on mathematics and experimentalism. This paper examines various forms of resistance to the emergence of a community of Newtonian savants in post-1750 France, focusing on institutions and authors located at its margins. First, I analyse the relationship between provincial and central academies through the case study of the Académie des Belles-Lettres de Caen. Here, the persistent opposition to Newton was partly due to cultural conservatism but was also a form of resistance to the centralisation and concentration of expertise, and the resulting homogenisation of practices, promoted by the Paris Academy. Secondly, I examine the opposition to Newton by some authors working outside the academic milieu, who contributed to the “provincialisation” of knowledge by addressing a provincial public in their writings. Their aim was not only to engage in a dialogue with the savants of the authoritative institutions, which was almost impossible at the time, but also to appear as polemicists on the public stage, attracting a readership thirsty for scientific perspectives alternative to those considered mainstream.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"109 ","pages":"Pages 21-30"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142865995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Through the convex Looking Glass: A Helmholtzian lesson for the connection between dynamics and chronogeometry in spacetime theories","authors":"Pablo Acuña","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.11.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.11.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Over the last two decades, the rise of the dynamicist view in the philosophy of spacetime theories has motivated a discussion about the way in which chronogeometric structure and dynamics are connected. Geometricists defend that chronogeometry determines and explains dynamics, whereas dynamicists state that it is the other way around. Both parties assume that the arrow of explanation at issue involves a claim of fundamentality and priority of one of the elements over the other. I challenge this assumption, and I propose a third way to understand the connection. Drawing a lesson from Herman von Helmholtz's and David Hilbert's views on the foundations of geometry, I argue that in spacetime theories chronogeometry and dynamics are inextricably interconnected counterparts, so claims of fundamental explanation and priority, regardless of the direction of the alleged arrow, are misconceptions. The link between chronogeometry and dynamics in spacetime theories is properly understood in terms of a bidirectional arrow, not in terms of a unidirectional arrow of fundamental explanation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"109 ","pages":"Pages 31-46"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142899679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rewriting the Quantum “Revolution”","authors":"Diana Taschetto","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper is a critical analysis of the structure of the quantum revolution. I consider the factual question of how, historically and theoretically, the classical gave way to the quantum, and I argue for an answer that shows, contra Thomas Kuhn’s influential philosophy of science, that it is the logic, and not the sociology and psychology, of research that correctly explains the classical-to-the-quantum paradigm shift. My approach is based not on archival studies but on a careful reading, in their original historical context, of Max Planck’s and Albert Einstein’s well-known papers; the burden of my argument, which at points will be outspoken, consists, then, in identifying and removing the impediments that prevent us from reading these papers in themselves. For this task I critically consider both the main, and mutually antagonistic, accounts of the origin of the quantum theory currently available in the literature—namely, the orthodox story, according to which Planck inaugurated the quantum theory in 1900, and that proposed by Thomas Kuhn in Black-Body Theory and Quantum Discontinuity—and I show that both of them are essentially incorrect. Both overlook the scientific status of the probabilistic kinetic theory of heat as of 1900, of which both Planck and Einstein were acutely aware. The orthodox story will be refuted by showing that Planck did not postulate energy discreteness to derive his black-body radiation law in 1900; and Kuhn, though he argued, as I do here, against the orthodoxy, did so on different grounds, and his own alternative is refuted by showing that Planck’s black-body radiation formula did not trigger a Kuhnian “crisis” in classical physics. This conceptual housekeeping will serve its purpose by removing the obstacles that make it impossible to analyze Planck’s and Einstein’s papers in themselves; once this is done, my conclusions follow.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"109 ","pages":"Pages 72-88"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142903932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intellectual inflation: one way for scientific research to degenerate","authors":"Javier Anta","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.01.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.01.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper aims to analyze a specific way in which a scientific programme or area can, in Lakatosian terms, degenerate: namely, through a developmental process of intellectual inflation. Adopting a pluralist approach to the notion of scientific progress, we propose that the historical development of a particular scientific area can be analyzed as being intellectually inflationary during a bounded period of time if it has considerably increased its productive output (thus demonstrating productive progressive) while the overall semantic or epistemic value of those products have not improved in a significant fashion (thus lacking progress in a semantic or epistemic sense). Then, we apply this concept to thoroughly assess whether there have been some intellectually inflationary patterns in the development of (i) information-theoretical evolutionary biology in 1961–2023, and (ii) ensemblist non-equilibrium statistical mechanics in 1938–2023. And finally, we argue that tracking and analyzing intellectually inflationary patterns in the history of sciences might contribute to vindicate a non-productivist picture of current scientific research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"109 ","pages":"Pages 134-145"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143043014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"","authors":"Edna Suárez-Díaz","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"109 ","pages":"Pages 132-133"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143143658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tracing the world through grasp and synthesis","authors":"Helene Scott-Fordsmand","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.12.002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"109 ","pages":"Pages 106-108"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143142567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}