Putting Theory in Its Place
The Relationship between Universality Arguments and Empirical Constraints
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8397278 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Grace E Field, Grace Field (0000-0003-2629-7191, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 95-122 |
| Publication date | 2025-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/718276 |
| OpenAlex | W3217268635 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 20 |
In light of its empirical undetectability, physicists have attempted to establish Hawking radiation as universal—as a phenomenon that should appear regardless of the possible details of quantum gravity, whatever those details might be. But, as pointed out in a recent article by Gryb, Palacios, and Thébault (2019), these universality arguments for Hawking radiation seem broadly unconvincing compared to the Wilsonian renormalization-group universality arguments for condensed matter physics. Motivated by their apparent failure, compared with the overwhelming success of universality arguments in so many other contexts, I address the question: in which situations should we expect to be able to construct successful universality arguments? In other words, which situations are ‘universality-argument-apt’? I distinguish between two notions of success for a universality argument: ‘strength’ and ‘relevance’. I argue that we should only expect to be able to construct universality arguments that are successful in the sense of being significantly relevant to a given domain if (1) we know enough about how that domain’s micro-physics is structured, or (2) we are able to empirically test the domain’s macro-behaviour, or if we are in both situations at once. These conditions are useful, most obviously, as a clarification of what universality arguments are capable of. But I argue that they are also useful for two less direct reasons: they clarify the status of analogue experimentation, and thereby show us where we stand in our search for empirical confirmation of Hawking radiation
Download · Empirical research · Epistemology · Physics · Sociology · Universality (dynamical systems · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |