Between laws and models: Some philosophical morals of lagrangian mechanics

Abstract

I extract some philosophical morals from some aspects of Lagrangian mechanics. 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

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Jeremy Butterfield
Cambridge University

Citations of this work

Classical Mechanics Is Lagrangian; It Is Not Hamiltonian.Erik Curiel - 2014 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (2):269-321.
Newtonian Forces.Jessica Wilson - 2007 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (2):173-205.
Metaphysics of the principle of least action.Vladislav Terekhovich - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 62:189-201.
On Dualities and Equivalences Between Physical Theories.Jeremy Butterfield - forthcoming - In Christian Wüthrich, Baptiste Le Bihan & Nick Huggett (eds.), Philosophy Beyond Spacetime. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
On the Import of Constraints in Complex Dynamical Systems.Cliff Hooker - 2013 - Foundations of Science 18 (4):757-780.

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References found in this work

Philosophical papers.David Kellogg Lewis - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Nature's capacities and their measurement.Nancy Cartwright - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science.Nancy Cartwright - 1999 - New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Science without laws.Ronald N. Giere - 1999 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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