2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

PSA Abstracts
Hacking’s astrophysical skepticism, particularly as expressed in his writing on
gravitational lenses, has generated a smattering of responses that center primarily
on his defense of realism (Morrison 1990, Shapere 1993, Reiner and Pierson
1995). But although Hacking tightly connects the topics of experimentation and
realism, this paper will not properly address the latter. I instead investigate
Hacking’s views on experimentation. Experimentation for Hacking serves as a
demarcation criterion between the natural and non-natural sciences, and as a
justificatory means for substantiating claims that the unobservable entities studied
by a natural science really exist. I challenge his notion of experiment’s success
in either role, and offer in its place a different conception of experimentation.
My view emphasizes different features than Hacking does, but does not destroy
his basic - and sensible - idea: that interacting with an entity (or at least its causal
powers) plays an important part in the comfort level scientists have with the
idea that the entities they discuss but cannot put their hands on exist.
Chuang Liu University of Florida
Infinite Systems in SM Explanations: Thermodynamic Limit,
Renormalization (semi-) Group, and Irreversibility
This paper examines the justifications for using infinite systems to ‘recover’
thermodynamic properties, such as phase transitions (PT), critical phenomena
(CP), and irreversibility, from the micro-structure of matter in bulk. Section 2
is a summary of such rigorous methods as in taking the thermodynamic limit
(TL) to recover PT and in using renormalization (semi) group approach (RG)
to explain the universality of critical exponents. Section 3 examines various
possible justifications for taking TL on physically finite systems. Section 4
discusses the legitimacy of applying TL to the problem of irreversibility and
assesses the repercussion for its legitimacy on its home turf.
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Holger Lyre Ruhr-University Bochum
Gauge Theoretic Conventionalism and the Generalized Equivalence Principle
The underlying principle of gauge field theories is the so-called gauge principle,
which is based on the idea of deriving the coupling structure of matter-fields
and gauge-potentials by satisfying a postulate of local gauge covariance. It is
common knowledge to consider this principle as sufficient to dictate the full
structure of gauge theories. This paper contains a critique of this usual point
of view: first, by emphasizing an intrinsic gauge theoretic conventionalism
and, second, by introducing a generalized equivalence principle - the identity
of inertial and field charge (as generalizations of inertial and gravitational
mass) - to justify the combination of equations of motion and field equations.