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This book argues that there is causation at every scale of measurement -- countering the philosophical position that causation, or "activity," occurs only at the minutest scales of measurement (the scale of microphysics). Thalos's scale-free model, as she shows, is much more hospitable to the models of physicists than are the single-scale models proposed by both reductionists and emergentists.
List of contents
- Introduction: Towards a Theory of Science
- Part I. Scale Freedom Recontextualized
- 1. Against the Philosophy of a One-Scale Universe
- 2. Resheathing
- Part II. Philosophical Foundations of Science and Metaphysics
- 3. Multiple Conceptions of Fundamentality
- 4. Why Causation Is Not the Cement of the Universe
- 5. Moves and Movers: Notes On the Progress of Science
- 6. Making Sense of Order: The True Cement of the Universe
- Part III. Deployments
- 7. The Logic of Leading and Following: Dependence and Independence Among Quantities
- 8. The Microcosm of Unity (of Science) That Is Physics
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- 9. Conclusion: Toward a More Truth-Illuminating Metaphysics
About the author
Mariam Thalos is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on foundational questions in the sciences, as well as on the relations amongst the sciences. Her work has been supported by the NSF, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Australian National University, the Tanner Humanities Center, and the University of Sydney Center for Foundations of Science. She is a former Professorial Fellow of the London Institute of Philosophy.
Summary
This book argues that there is causation at every scale of measurement - countering the philosophical position that causation, or "activity," occurs only at the minutest scales of measurement (the scale of microphysics). Thalos's scale-free model, as she shows, is much more hospitable to the models of physicists than are the single-scale models proposed by both reductionists and emergentists.
Additional text
This book is sure to attract considerable scholarly attention, but it is also accessible to any reader who has some familiarity with the debates to which Thalos is responding ... Highly recommended.
