Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-86b6f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-07T07:57:23.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What Is the Paradox of Phase Transitions?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Elay Shech
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I present a novel approach to the scholarly debate that has arisen with respect to the philosophical import one should infer from scientific accounts of phase transitions by appealing to a distinction between representation understood as denotation, and faithful representation understood as a type of guide to ontology. It is argued that the entire debate is misguided, for it stems from a pseudo-paradox that does not license the type of claims made by scholars and that what is really interesting about phase transitions is the manner by which they force us to rethink issues regarding scientific representation, idealizations, and realism.

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 1170 - 1181
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.)

Footnotes

†

Special thanks John Norton, Robert Batterman, John Earman, and Giovanni Valente for helpful discussions and comments on earlier drafts of this article.

References

Bangu, S. 2009. “Understanding Thermodynamic Singularities: Phase Transitions, Date and Phenomena.” Philosophy of Science 76:488–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batterman, R. 2005. “Critical Phenomena and Breaking Drops: Infinite Idealizations in Physics.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 36:225–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batterman, R. 2010. “On the Explanatory Role of Mathematics in Empirical Science.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (1): 1–25..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batterman, R. 2013. “The Tyranny of Scales.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics, ed. Batterman, R. W.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butterfield, J. 2011. “Less Is Different: Emergence and Reduction Reconciled.” Foundations of Physics 41 (6): 1065–1135..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callender, C. 2001. “Taking Thermodynamics Too Seriously.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science B 32 (4): 539–53..Google Scholar
Colyvan, M. 2001. The Indispensability of Mathematics. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Contessa, G. 2007. “Scientific Representation, Interpretation and Surrogative Reasoning.” Philosophy of Science 74:48–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, N. J. 2006. “Ineliminable Idealizations, Phase Transitions and Irreversibility.” PhD diss., Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Kadanoff, L. P. 2000. Statistical Physics: Statics, Dynamics and Renormalization. Singapore: World Scientific.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebowitz, J. L. 1999. “Statistical Mechanics: A Selective Review of Two Central Issues.” Reviews of Modern Physics 71 (2): S346–S357..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, C. 1999. “Explaining the Emergence of Cooperative Phenomena.” Philosophy of Science 66 (Proceedings): S92–S106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mainwood, P. R. 2006. “Is More Different? Emergent Properties in Physics.” PhD diss., Oxford University.Google Scholar
Menon, T., and Callender, C.. 2013. “Turn and Face the Strange … Ch-Ch-Changes: Philosophical Questions Raised by Phase Transitions.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics, ed. Batterman, R. W.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Morrison, M. 2012. “Emergent Physics and Micro-Ontology.” Philosophy of Science 79:141–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norton, J. D. 2012. “Approximations and Idealizations: Why the Difference Matters.” Philosophy of Science 79:207–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prigogine, I. 1997. The End of Certainty. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, G. 2001. “Abstract Objects.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects.Google Scholar
Sklar, L. M. 2003. “Dappled Theories in a Uniform World.” Philosophy of Science 70:424–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Styer, D. F. 2004. “What Good Is the Thermodynamic Limit?” American Journal of Physics 72 (1): 25–29..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wayne, A. 2009. “Emergence and Singular Limits.” Synthese 184 (3): 341–56..Google Scholar