Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:37:33.413Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Renormalization Group Realism: The Ascent of Pessimism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Laura Ruetsche
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

One realist response to the pessimistic meta-induction distinguishes idle theoretical wheels from aspects of successful theories we can expect to persist and espouses realism about the latter. Implementing the response requires a strategy for identifying the distinguished aspects. The strategy I will call renormalization group realism has the virtue of directly engaging the gears of our best current physics—perturbative quantum field theories. I argue that the strategy, rather than disarming the skeptical possibilities evinced by the pessimistic meta-induction, forces them to retreat a level. I also suggest that those skeptical possibilities continue to carry force.

Type
Cognitive Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 5 , December 2018 , pp. 1176 - 1189
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

†

I am obliged to my fellow symposiasts (Doreen Fraser, James Fraser, Leif Hancox-Li, Michael Miller, and Porter Williams) for provocation and guidance.

References

Delamotte, B. 2007. “An Introduction to the Nonperturbative Renormalization Group.” arXiv preprint cond-mat/0702365.Google Scholar
Duncan, A. 2012. The Conceptual Framework of Quantum Field Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, J. D. 2016. “What Is Quantum Field Theory?” DPhil thesis, University of Leeds.Google Scholar
Fraser, J. D. 2017. “The Real Problem with Perturbative QFT.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. doi:10.1093/bjps/axx042.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gawedzki, K. 1986. “Renormalization Group, from Magic to Mathematics.” Talk delivered at the International Congress on Math, Berkeley, CA.Google Scholar
Hancox-Li, L. 2015. “Coarse-Graining as a Route to Microscopic Physics.” Philosophy of Science 82:1211–23.Google Scholar
Polchinski, Joseph. 1984. “Renormalization and Effective Lagrangians.” Nuclear Physics B 231:269–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, David. 2006. “In Defence of Naiveté: The Conceptual Status of Lagrangian Quantum Field Theory.” Synthese 151:33–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, James. 2015. Effective Theories. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Williams, Porter. 2017. “Scientific Realism Made Effective.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. doi:10.1093/bjps/axx043.CrossRefGoogle Scholar