All meetings for TT25 will be held on Thursdays at 13:00 - see below for details of location for each week.​

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Week 1 (1/5): Paolo Faglia (Oxford) - Perspectives in Special Relativity: against fragmentalism

Location: Littlegate Room, Pembroke College

 

Abstract: Things appear to be different from different perspectives. The standard reply to this perspectival variance is to claim that such differences are mere appearances and not part of reality. Lipman (2016) argues that special relativity (SR) radically extends this perspectival variance to most of the ways in which things appear to us. Given the wealth of properties subject to perspectival variance, Lipman argues that denying their reality is problematic. On the other hand, by adopting a picture of reality as fragmented, one can embrace the reality of such variant properties (Lipman 2018). I argue that in so far as such a fragmentalist metaphysics may be motivated, it is not motivated by SR. Instead, it is possible to understand SR within a single unified reality, and it is unclear whether the fragmentalist approach to SR delivers the advantages Lipman advertises.

 

I will start by explaining that SR does not establish the kind of perspectival variance envisaged by Lipman. As a consequence, Lipman's arguments are left severely weakened. I will then sketch an alternative to the fragmentalist account of SR, thus illustrating how one can can understand SR within a single, unified reality. A comparison between these two approaches shows that fragmentalism fails to deliver the advantages Lipman advertises.

 

Week 2 (8/5): Aditya Jha (Cambridge) - Thermodynamics has never been subjective, classical or quantum​​​

Location: Littlegate Room, Pembroke College

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In a recent paper, Robertson and Prunkl (2023) - Is Thermodynamics Subjective? (Philosophy of Science, 90 (5)) - address a crucial concern with respect to thermodynamics: the claim that including epistemic factors - such as agents/observers and their varying degrees of credence - renders the theory subjective or anthropocentric, as it appears that fundamental thermodynamic distinctions (for instance, between heat and work) are observer-dependent. The authors contend that quantum mechanics can liberate thermodynamics from this issue as quantum probabilities are inherently objective; they allow for agent-independent assertions that are consistent with the thermodynamic description of a system, thereby establishing the objectivity of thermodynamics. However, contrary to what the authors argue, I argue that an observer's role is overstated and largely unnecessary for achieving objective thermal system descriptions. In typical states, thermal systems evolve toward their attractor distribution in an objective manner, independent of whether observers employ classical or quantum credences, indicating that the use of objective expectation values does not play a critical role in making objective thermodynamic statements. I further explain why factors such as coarse-graining, resource-relativity, and choice of measure - which although involve agent-dependent considerations - do not inject subjectivity into thermodynamics. The overall conclusion is that quantum considerations do not remove the anthropocentrism inherent in thermodynamics since there was none anyway.

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​Week 3 (15/5): Pascal Rodríguez-Warnier (Western) - Title TBC

Location: Ryle Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building

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Week 4 (22/5): Lem Tsikas (Bristol) - Title TBC

Location: Ryle Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building

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Week 5 (29/5): Bryan Cheng (Oxford) - Title TBC

Location: Seminar Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building

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Week 6 (5/6): Felix Muller (Oxford) - Title TBC

Location: Littlegate Room, Pembroke College

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Week 7 (12/6): Dominic Ryder (LSE) - Title TBC

Location: Ryle Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building

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Week 8 (19/6): Eleanor March (Oxford) - Minimal coupling, the strong equivalence principle, and the adaptation of matter to spacetime geometry

Location: Littlegate Room, Pembroke College

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Abstract: I provide a systematic exploration of one set of precise technical conditions under which matter fields might be said to be "adapted" to a relativistic spacetime geometry - namely, that the equations governing those matter fields be minimally coupled, quasilinear, and symmetric hyperbolic. In particular, I show that this class of theories necessarily satisfy (i) the dominant energy condition, (ii) the conservation condition, and (iii) the Geroch-Earman causality condition. (This suffices for them to satisfy a version of the geodesic principle, and closes the gap between Geroch-Earman causality and the dominant energy condition.) I also discuss the relationships between minimal coupling, the "strong equivalence principle", "local (approximate) Poincaré symmetry", and the "local validity of special relativity", thus clearing up issues in the geometry-dynamics debate about the meaning and status of those principles.

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