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This volume collects previously unpublished contributions to the philosophy of science. What brings them together is a twofold goal: first and foremost, celebrating the name of Roberto Torretti, whose works in this and other areas have had -and continue to have- a significant impact on the international philosophy of science community; and second, the desire of advancing novel perspectives on various issues in the philosophy of science broadly construed. Roberto Torretti has made substantial contributions to current debates in the history and philosophy of science, the general philosophy of science, and the philosophy of physics and geometry. Among his landmark contributions, we find his investigations in the history and philosophy of geometry, as well as his systematic studies of Einstein's relativity theory. This volume convenes leading philosophers and early-career scholars compiling a fine collection of chapters addressing recent debates on Kantian philosophy of science, the general philosophy of science, and the history and philosophy of physics and mathematics.
List of contents
1. Editor's Introduction: Celebrating Roberto Torretti (Cristián Soto).- 2. Roberto Torretti's Philosophy of Science (Cristián Soto).- 3. Du Châtelet on Absolute and Relative Motion (Katherine Brading and Qiu Lin).- 4. Effective Field Theories: A Case Study for Torretti's Perspective on Kantian Objectivity (Thomas Ryckman).- 5. A Kantian-Rooted Pluralist Realism for Science (Olimpia Lombardi).- 6. Mathematical Fictionalism Revisited (Otávio Bueno).- 7. Functionalism as a Species of Reduction (Jeremy Butterfield and Henrique Gomes).- 8. Intertheoretic Reduction in Physics beyond the Nagelian Model (Patricia Palacios).- 9. Inductive Inferences on Galactic Redshift, Understood Materially (John D. Norton).- 10. When Does a Boltzmannian Equilibrium Exist? (Charlotte Werndl and Roman Frigg).- 11. Boltzmannian Non-Equilibrium and Local Variables (Roman Frigg and Charlotte Werndl).- 12. Scientific Understanding in Astronomical Modelsfrom Eudoxus to Kepler (Pablo Acuña).- 13. Reinterpreting Crucial Experiments (Alejandro Cassini).- 14. Non-Reflexive Logics and Their Metaphysics. A Critical Appraisal (Jonas R. B. Arenhart).- 15. Typicality of Dynamics and Laws of Nature (Aldo Filomeno).- 16. The Case of Phonons: Explanatory or Ontological Priority (Hernán Lucas Accorinti, Sebastian Fortin, Manuel Herrera, and Jesús JaimesAppendix: Publications by Roberto Torretti).
About the author
Dr. Cristián Soto is Associate Professor at the Departamento de Filosofía, Universidad de Chile, and Newton International Fellow for the British Academy, based at the CPNSS, LSE, UK. He earned his doctoral degree at the University of Melbourne, Australia (2016), developing a framework for a minimalist metaphysics of science. He has held visiting appointments at the Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, U.S.A.; the CPNSS, LSE, UK; the MCMP, LMU, Munich, Germany; and the Logos Research Group in Analytic Philosophy, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. In 2020, he was awarded a visiting fellowship at the Center for the Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A., which had to be declined due to the COVID pandemic. He has published extensively on history and philosophy of laws of nature, metaphysics of science, and the scientific realism debate, with his current work at the LSE focusing on the intertwining of laws and the application of mathematics. He is a founding member and first president of the Sociedad Chilena de Filosofía de las Ciencias, and Director of the Grupo de Estudios de Filosofía de las Ciencias at the Universidad de Chile.
