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Conceptual Problems in Classical Electrodynamics*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mathias Frisch
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Abstract

In Frisch 2004 and 2005 I showed that the standard ways of modeling particle-field interactions in classical electrodynamics, which exclude the interactions of a particle with its own field, results in a formal inconsistency, and I argued that attempts to include the self-field lead to numerous conceptual problems. In this paper I respond to criticism of my account in Belot 2007 and Muller 2007. I concede that this inconsistency in itself is less telling than I suggested earlier but argue that existing solutions to the theory's foundational problems do not support the kind of traditional philosophical conception of scientific theorizing defended by Muller and Belot.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 93 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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