In this journal, D. Rizza [11] (p. 176) expounded a solution of what he called “the indiscernibility problem for ante rem structuralism”, which is the problem to make sense of the presence, in structures, of objects that are indiscernible yet distinct, by only appealing to what that structure provid
In the context of discussions about the nature of ‘identical particles’ and the status of Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Quantum Mechanics, a novel kind of physical discernibility has recently been proposed, which we call witness-discernibility. We inquire into how witness-
Crucial to structural realism is the Central Claim that entity B is or has structure S. We argue that neither the set-theoretical nor the category-theoretical conceptions of structure clarify the Claim in a way that serves the needs of structural realism. One of these needs is to have a viable accou
Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective (henceforth: Representation), B. C. van Fraassen's most recent, 400pp. contribution to the philosophy of science, is contemporary, varied, systematic, historical, exciting, provocative, empiricist, pragmatist, profound, sketchy and accessible. We g
We inquire into the question whether the Aristotelian or classical ideal of science has been realised by the Model Revolution, initiated at Stanford University during the 1950s and spread all around the world of philosophy of science—salute Suppes. The guiding principle of the Model Revolution is: a
We maximally extend the quantum‐mechanical results of Muller and Saunders (2008) establishing the ‘weak discernibility’ of an arbitrary number of similar fermions in finite‐dimensional Hilbert spaces. This confutes the currently dominant view that (A) the quantum‐mechanical description of similar pa
We demonstrate that the quantum-mechanical description of composite physical systems of an arbitrary number of similar fermions in all their admissible states, mixed or pure, for all finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, is not in conflict with Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII
In this journal, Dicken & Lipton [2006] argued, following Musgrave [1985], that a constructive empiricist cannot coherently draw the distinction between observable objects (events, processes, …) and unobservable ones. We argue to the contrary: the distinction can be drawn coherently, but add a quali
Over the past years, in books and journals (this journal included), N. Maxwell launched a ferocious attack on B. C. van Fraassen’s view of science called Constructive Empiricism (CE). This attack has been totally ignored. Must we conclude from this silence that no defence is possible and that a fort
“Science in the 21st century has become industrialized,” writes George Johnson in the introduction to his new book The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments. “The experiments so often celebrated in the newspapers – sequencing the genome, proving the existence of the top-quark, discovering a new planet by a
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