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Discussion: Conceptual Foundations of Field Theories in Physics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Andrew Wayne
Andrew Wayne*
Affiliation:
Concordia University
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Montreal, H3G 1M8, Canada.
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Abstract

This discussion provides a brief commentary on each of the papers presented in the symposium on the conceptual foundations of field theories in physics. In Section 2 I suggest an alternative to Paul Teller's (1999) reading of the gauge argument that may help to solve, or dissolve, its puzzling aspects. In Section 3 I contend that Sunny Auyang's (1999) arguments against substantivalism and for “objectivism” in the context of gauge field theories face serious worries. Finally, in Section 4 I claim that Gordon Fleming's (1999) proposal for hyperplane-dependent Newton-Wigner fields differs importantly from his previous arguments about hyperplane-dependent properties in quantum mechanics.

Type
Philosophy of Physics and Chemistry
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S516 - S522
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank Sunny Auyang, Gordon Fleming, and Paul Teller for useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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