Fundamental theories and epistemic shifts: Can history of science serve as a guide?

TY - CHAP

T1 - Fundamental theories and epistemic shifts

T2 - Can history of science serve as a guide?

AU - Kragh, Helge Stjernholm

PY - 2019/1/1

Y1 - 2019/1/1

N2 - The recent debate about fundamental physical theories with no or little connection to experiment and observation concerns primarily the relationship between theoretical physics and philosophy. There are reasons to believe that a more enlightened perspective on the debate can be obtained by also taking into regard the history of physics and history of science generally. Possibly unknown to many physicists, there are several historical precedents, cases that are somewhat analogous to the present one and from which much can be learned. Apart from outlining what I consider to be the essence of the current debate, this chapter briefly discusses the general role that history of science can play in science and philosophy of science. It refers to some noteworthy lessons from past physics, of which one particular case, the nineteenth-century vortex theory of matter, is singled out as a possible analogy to the methodological situation in string physics. While I do not suggest that these earlier cases are substantially similar to the ones concerning string theory and the multiverse, I do suggest that there are sufficient similarities on the level of methodology and rhetoric to make them relevant for modern physicists and philosophers.

AB - The recent debate about fundamental physical theories with no or little connection to experiment and observation concerns primarily the relationship between theoretical physics and philosophy. There are reasons to believe that a more enlightened perspective on the debate can be obtained by also taking into regard the history of physics and history of science generally. Possibly unknown to many physicists, there are several historical precedents, cases that are somewhat analogous to the present one and from which much can be learned. Apart from outlining what I consider to be the essence of the current debate, this chapter briefly discusses the general role that history of science can play in science and philosophy of science. It refers to some noteworthy lessons from past physics, of which one particular case, the nineteenth-century vortex theory of matter, is singled out as a possible analogy to the methodological situation in string physics. While I do not suggest that these earlier cases are substantially similar to the ones concerning string theory and the multiverse, I do suggest that there are sufficient similarities on the level of methodology and rhetoric to make them relevant for modern physicists and philosophers.

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108671224

DO - https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108671224

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 9781108671224

SP - 13

EP - 28

BT - Why Trust a Theory?

A2 - Dardashti, R.

A2 - Dawid, R.

A2 - Thébault, K.

PB - Oxford University Press

CY - Cambridge

ER -