Fundamental Properties of Fundamental Properties

Eddon, M.

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199682904.003.0002

Cited by 27 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…In this paper, I argue that Dasgupta's reasoning extends to any form of quantity primitivism. 5 Eddon (2013) argues that the best accounts of quantitative properties invoke perfectly natural second order properties. 6 Putting it this way is a bit misleading: appearances aside, Mundy's ≤ is not the same relation as the mathematical relation that holds between the members of both the pairs (2,2) and (2,3)rather, it is a relation that holds among the magnitudes of mass that instantiates the same structure as the less than or equal to relation does among the real numbers.…”

Section: Philosophy Department Vassar Collegementioning

confidence: 99%

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Physical Magnitudes

Dees

2018

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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Scientific properties come in degrees: elephants are more massive than mice. Are facts like these fundamental or can they be explained in other terms? This article argues that the structure of physical quantities like mass reduces to facts about the role that mass plays in the laws of nature. On this view elephants are more massive than mice partly in virtue of the fact that elephants are harder to throw around.

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Section: Philosophy Department Vassar Collegementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eddon () argues that the best accounts of quantitative properties invoke perfectly natural second order properties.…”

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confidence: 99%

Physical Magnitudes

Dees

2018

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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“…Rather than use second-order betweenness and congruence relations, he uses second-order less than or equal to and concatenation relations, modeling his account on Krantz et al's treatment of extensive measurement. 25 Eddon (2013) 26 Many thanks to Chris Meacham and Katia Vavova for comments and discussion.…”

Section: A Suggestionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intrinsic Explanations and Numerical Representations

Eddon¹

2014

Companion to Intrinsic Properties

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In his (1980), Hartry Field argues that good explanations of physical phenomena are "intrinsic explanations." Roughly, an intrinsic explanation of some phenomenon is one that invokes objects that are causally relevant to the phenomenon to be explained. For instance, an explanation of the structure of spacetime that appeals to spacetime points and the relations they stand in is an intrinsic explanation, while one that appeals to causally irrelevant entities like numbers is an extrinsic explanation. More carefully, let us say that a predicate F is an intrinsic predicate iff whether F(x1, …, xn) obtains does not depend on anything other than x1, …, xn, and the relations among them. Let us say that a fact is an intrinsic fact iff the predicates it involves are intrinsic predicates. Finally, let us say that an explanation is an intrinsic explanation iff it only involves intrinsic facts and intrinsic predicates. Field argues that his treatment of quantity is able to provide intrinsic explanations of the structure of space, spacetime, and other quantitative properties, as well as intrinsic explanations of why certain numerical representations of quantities (distances, lengths, mass, temperature, etc.) are appropriate or acceptable while others are not.In contrast, Brian Ellis (1960) and(1966) argues that certain quantitative predicates are not intrinsic, 2 and that numerical representations of quantitative features are largely a matter of convention. In a similar vein, Peter Milne (1986) uses arguments like Ellis's to argue that both of Field's claims are false -that Field's account cannot provide intrinsic explanations of either our numerical representations of quantity or the structure of quantity.In this paper, I show where the arguments put forth by Ellis and Milne go wrong, and where they go right. Their arguments that one cannot provide an 1 These notions of "intrinsic" are those employed by Field and Milne. They are not particularly explicit about what they mean by these terms, but the characterizations given above are suggested by the passages in Field (1980, 27-28 and 41-46) and Milne (1986, 344 and 346). (Of course, to make these characterizations completely precise, one needs to spell out the relevant notions of "involves" and "depends.") 2 Ellis does not put it in quite this way. Rather, he suggests that "grounds of convenience" (1966, 82) and "the roles of the various quantities in physical theory" (86) are "the only kind [s] of justification that can be given" (83) for the choice of fundamental scale and fundamental measuring procedure. This entails that certain length relations are, on his view, not intrinsic.

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“…Sider himself thinks there are serious limitations to talk of structural entities rather structural ideology; see 6.3 of his book. For further discussion of naturalness, including skepticism that one such notion plays all of the naturalness roles, see Dorr and Hawthorne () and Eddon ().…”

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confidence: 99%

Fundamentality And Modal Freedom

Wang

2016

Philosophical Perspectives

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Fundamental Properties of Fundamental Properties

Cited by 27 publications

References 30 publications

Physical Magnitudes

Physical Magnitudes

Intrinsic Explanations and Numerical Representations

Fundamentality And Modal Freedom

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