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Mathematics and Reality: Two Notions of Spacetime in the Analytic and Constructionist Views of Gauge Field Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Sunny Y. Auyang
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Abstract

This paper presents two interpretations of the fiber bundle fonnalism that is applicable to all gauge field theories. The constructionist interpretation yields a substantival spacetime. The analytic interpretation yields a structural spacetime, a third option besides the familiar substantivalism and relationalism. That the same mathematical fonnalism can be derived in two different ways leading to two different ontological interpretations reveals the inadequacy of pure fonnal arguments.

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. S482 - S494
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I thank Paul Teller for helpful discussions and John Stachel and Andrew Wayne for critical readings of the first draft.

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