Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-lqqdg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-21T19:33:35.354Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Idealizations and Contextualism in Physics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Kevin Davey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Describing a physical system in idealized terms involves making claims about the system that we know to be literally false. Because of this, it is not clear how calculations involving idealizations can generate justified belief and explain facts about the world. I argue that this puzzling aspect of idealizations cannot be explained away by talking about approximations, as is often supposed. I develop a different account of how justified beliefs and explanations can be generated from idealized descriptions of physical systems. My account involves a type of contextualism about the truth of mathematical descriptions of physical systems.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 16 - 38
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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Belot, G. 2007. “Is Classical Electrodynamics an Inconsistent Theory?” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (2): 263–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brush, S. 1983. Statistical Physics and the Atomic Theory of Matter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frisch, M. 2004. “Inconsistency in Classical Electrodynamics.” Philosophy of Science 71:525–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giere, R. 2004. “How Models Are Used to Represent Reality.” Philosophy of Science 71:742–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, C., and McNally, L.. 2010. “Color, Context, and Compositionality.” Synthese 174:79–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pincock, C. 2007. “Mathematical Idealizations.” Philosophy of Science 74:957–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 1980. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar