An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics: Locality, Fields, Energy, and Mass

1. What Is Spatiotemporal Locality?.

The Big Picture.

Causal Relations between Events.

Action by Contact.

Spatial, Temporal, and Spatiotemporal Locality Defined.

Intrinsic Properties and Noncausal Connections.

You Might Think about...

2. Fields to the Rescue?.

The Electric Force.

The Electric Field and its Possible Interpretations.

Potentials.

Lines of Force.

You Might Think about...

3. Dispositions and Causes:.

Introduction.

Dispositions, Categorical Bases, and Subjunctive Conditionals.

Are the Categorical Bases in Themselves Unknowable?.

You Might Think about...

4. Locality and Scientific Explanation:.

Is Action at a Distance Impossible?.

Brute Facts and Ultimate Explanations.

Which Facts are Brute?.

You Might Think about...

5. Fields, Energy, and Momentum:.

Introduction.

The Argument from Conserved Quantities.

Why Energy's Ontological Status Matters.

Energy in Classical Physics.

Energy in the Fields.

Energy Flow and the Poynting Vector.

A Moral Regarding the Testability of Theories.

You Might Think about...

6. Is There Nothing But Fields?.

Is Electric Charge Real?.

Faraday's Picture.

You Might Think about...

7. Relativity and the Unification of Electricity and Magnetism:.

Unification in Physics.

How Relativity Unifies Electricity and Magnetism.

Einstein's Argument from Asymmetry.

The Interdependence of Philosophy and Physics.

You Might Think about...

8. Relativity, Energy, Mass, and the Reality of Fields:.

Classical Physics and the "Relativity of Motion".

Relativistic Invariants and the Unification that Relativity Achieves: Space and Time.

Relativistic Invariants and the Unification that Relativity Achieves: Energy and Momentum.

Mass and the Meaning of "E = mc2".

Fields -- at Last!.

Erasing the Line between Scientific Theory and its Philosophical Interpretation.

You Might Think about...

9. Quantum Metaphysics:.

Is Quantum Mechanics Complete?.

The Bell Inequalities.

For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Wrestling with Nonlocality.

Entanglement, Reduction, and Intrinsic Properties.

You Might Think about...

Final Exam.

References.

Index.