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What Do Symmetries Tell Us about Structure?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Thomas William Barrett
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Abstract

Mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers of physics often look to the symmetries of an object for insight into the structure and constitution of the object. My aim in this article is to explain why this practice is successful. In order to do so, I present a collection of results that are closely related to (and, in a sense, generalizations of) Beth’s and Svenonius’s theorems.

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Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 617 - 639
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Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I am especially grateful to Hans Halvorson for many discussions about this material. Thanks to Neil Dewar, John Dougherty, Ben Feintzeig, Phillip Kremer, Alex Meehan, J. B. Manchak, and Jim Weatherall for comments and discussion on earlier versions of this article. Thanks also to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and feedback.

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