This proposal is to allow Frisch to complete a book entitled Philosophy and Classical Electrodynamics. He investigates several philosophical issues arising in classical electrodynamics, a theory that to date has received relatively little attention from philosophers of science. Frisch argues that philosophers unjustifiably have taken the theory to be conceptually unproblematic and that an in-depth philosophical investigation of classical electrodynamics can shed new light on a number of important general problems in the philosophy of science, such as that of the role of laws, symmetries, and models in scientific theorizing; the question of the role of a theory's domain; and the problem of causation. Frisch proposes to complete a manuscript of the book, which brings together several relatively independent philosophical investigations. The common philosophical thread in the book is Frisch's claim that most traditional accounts of scientific theories have overemphasized the role of laws in scientific theorizing. According to traditional accounts there is a simple mapping function from the mathematical models of a theory's laws onto the phenomena and the scientists' and philosophers' interpretive work is exhausted by identifying this mapping function and describing the possible worlds that with its help can be constructed from the laws' mathematical models. By contrast, Frisch argues that the representational content of a theory ought to be located in 'low-level' representational models, which need not in general satisfy the theory's laws and which are embedded into a much richer interpretive framework than traditional accounts permit.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES)
Type
Standard Grant (Standard)
Application #
0093212
Program Officer
Bruce E. Seely
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2001-08-15
Budget End
2002-07-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2000
Total Cost
$57,168
Indirect Cost
Name
Northwestern University at Chicago
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Evanston
State
IL
Country
United States
Zip Code
60201