Between laws and models: Some philosophical morals of lagrangian mechanics
| Abstract | I extract some philosophical morals from some aspects of Lagrangian mechanics. (A companion paper will present similar morals from Hamiltonian mechanics and Hamilton-Jacobi theory.) One main moral concerns methodology: Lagrangian mechanics provides a level of description of phenomena which has been largely ignored by philosophers, since it falls between their accustomed levels---``laws of nature'' and ``models''. Another main moral concerns ontology: the ontology of Lagrangian mechanics is both more subtle and more problematic than philosophers often realize. The treatment of Lagrangian mechanics provides an introduction to the subject for philosophers, and is technically elementary. In particular, it is confined to systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom, and for the most part eschews modern geometry. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesDavid Wallace (2006). In Defence of Naiveté: The Conceptual Status of Lagrangian Quantum Field Theory. Synthese 151 (1):33 - 80.
Sheldon R. Smith (2008). Symmetries and the Explanation of Conservation Laws in the Light of the Inverse Problem in Lagrangian Mechanics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B 39 (2):325-345.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads24 ( #51,701 of 549,198 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,397 of 549,198 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
