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Changing the Subject: Redei on Causal Dependence and Screening Off in Relativistic Quantum Field Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Rob Clifton  and
Laura Ruetsche
Rob Clifton
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Laura Ruetsche*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
*
†Department of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e-mail: ruetsche + @pitt.edu; [email protected].
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Abstract

In a pair of articles (1996, 1997) and in his recent book (1998), Miklos Redei has taken enormous strides toward characterizing the conditions under which relativistic quantum field theory is a safe setting for the deployment of causal talk. Here, we challenge the adequacy of the accounts of causal dependence and screening off on which rests the relevance of Redei's theorems to the question of causal good behavior in the theory.

Type
Foundations of Statistical Physics, Spacetime Theories, and Quantum Field Theory
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1999 , 1999 , pp. S156 - S169
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

We would like to thank David Malament for technical advice on an earlier draft of this paper, and Chuang Liu, Simon Saunders, and other members of the audience in Kansas City for (among other things) drawing our attention to situations in which state-independent notions of causation are appropriate.

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