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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 3: Classical Gravity 1

AGPhil 3.2: Hauptvortrag

Montag, 18. März 2024, 15:30–16:15, PTB SR AvHB

Singular terms and singular spacetimes — •Tushar Menon — Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Melbourne, Australia

The question of whether or not we should be scientific realists turns crucially on what it is to interpret a scientific theory. In this talk, I argue that the representationalist model, according to which we interpret theories by (i) deciding which objects in the world are represented (/referred to) by its central singular terms, and then (ii) making claims about these objects' properties and relations, is deeply flawed. In its place I propose a model based on a Sellars-Brandom-style inferentialism. On this view, theory interpretation is an exercise in spelling out the contribution that scientific claims make to good inferences. This model allows for a much more compelling and nuanced view about how good scientific theories come to be about the world. To borrow terminology from Lehmkuhl (2020), this model underpins a careful, as opposed to a literal, interpretation of a physical theory. I demonstrate the power of this approach by discussing, as a case study, the interpretation of singularities in classical and quantum gravity.

Keywords: Theory interpretation; Scientific realism; Quantum Gravity; Singularities; Black Holes