Abstract
I will defend two claims. First, Schaffer’s priority monism is in tension with many research programs in quantum gravity. Second, priority monism can be modified into a view more amenable to this physics. The first claim is grounded in the fact that promising approaches to quantum gravity such as loop quantum gravity or string theory deny the fundamental reality of spacetime. Since fundamental spacetime plays an important role in Schaffer’s priority monism by being identified with the fundamental structure, namely the cosmos, the disappearance of spacetime in these views might undermine classical priority monism. My second claim is that priority monism can avoid this issue with two moves: first, in dropping one of its core assumption, namely that the fundamental structure is spatio-temporal, second, by identifying the connection between the non-spatio-temporal structure and the derivative spatio-temporal structure with mereological composition.
Acknowledgments
For helpful comments on previous versions of the essay, I would like to thank Jiri Benovsky, Karen Crowther Niels Linnemann, Christian Wüthrich and an anonymous referee. This work was performed under a collaborative agreement between the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Geneva and made possible by grant number 56314 from the John Templeton Foundation. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.
References
Armstrong, D.M. 1978. “Naturalism, Materialism and First Philosophy.” Philosophia 8 (2–3):261–276.10.1007/BF02379243Search in Google Scholar
Benocci, M. 2017. “Priority Monism and Essentiality of Fundamentality: A Reply to Steinberg.” Philosophical Studies 174 (8):1983–1990.10.1007/s11098-016-0778-0Search in Google Scholar
Chalmers, D.J. 1995. “Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness.” Journal of Consciousness Studies ^2 (3):200–219.Search in Google Scholar
Crowther, K.J. 2016. Effective Spacetime: Understanding Emergence in Effective Field Theory and Quantum Gravity. New York, NY: Springer.10.1007/978-3-319-39508-1Search in Google Scholar
Dowker, F. 2014. “The Birth of Spacetime Atoms as the Passage of Time.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1326:18–25.10.1111/nyas.12542Search in Google Scholar PubMed
Halvorson, H., and R. Clifton. 2002. “No Place for Particles in Relativistic Quantum Theories?.” Philosophy of Science 69 (1):1–28.10.1086/338939Search in Google Scholar
Huggett, N. 2017. “Target Space ≠ Space.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsb.2015.08.007.Search in Google Scholar
Huggett, N., and C. Wüthrich. 2013. “Emergent Spacetime and Empirical (In)Coherence.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 44 (3):276–285.10.1016/j.shpsb.2012.11.003Search in Google Scholar
Le Bihan, B. 2015a. “Un espace-temps de contingences.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rennes 1.Search in Google Scholar
Le Bihan, B. 2015b. “No Physical Particles for a Dispositional Monist?.” Philosophical Papers 44 (2):207–232.10.1080/05568641.2015.1056960Search in Google Scholar
Le Bihan, B. 2016. “Super-Relationism: Combining Eliminativism about Objects and Relationism about Spacetime.” Philosophical Studies 173 (8):21522178.10.1007/s11098-015-0602-2Search in Google Scholar
Malament, D.B. 1977. “The Class of Continuous Timelike Curves Determines the Topology of Spacetime.” Journal of Mathematical Physics 18 (7):1399–1404. doi:10.1063/1.523436.Search in Google Scholar
Matsubara, K. 2013. “Realism, Underdetermination and String Theory Dualities.” Synthese 190 (3):471–489.10.1007/s11229-011-0041-3Search in Google Scholar
Matsubara, K. 2017. “Quantum Gravity and the Nature of Space and Time.” Philosophy Compass 12:3.10.1111/phc3.12405Search in Google Scholar
Maudlin, T.W.E. 2007. “Completeness, Supervenience and Ontology.” Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 40 (12):3151.10.1088/1751-8113/40/12/S16Search in Google Scholar
Monton, B. 2006. “Quantum Mechanics and 3ndimensional Space.” Philosophy of Science 73 (5):778–789.10.1086/518633Search in Google Scholar
Ney, A. 2015. “Fundamental Physical Ontologies and the Constraint of Empirical Coherence: A Defense of Wave Function Realism.” Synthese 192 (10):3105–3124.10.1007/s11229-014-0633-9Search in Google Scholar
Paul, L.A. 2002. “Logical Parts.” Noûs 36 (4):578–596.10.1111/1468-0068.00402Search in Google Scholar
Paul, L.A. 2012. “Building the World from Its Fundamental Constituents.” Philosophical Studies 158 (2):221–256.10.1007/s11098-012-9885-8Search in Google Scholar
Rovelli, C. 2004. Quantum Gravity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511755804Search in Google Scholar
Rovelli, C., and F. Vidotto. 2014. Covariant Loop Quantum Gravity: An Elementary Introduction to Quantum Gravity and Spinfoam Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781107706910Search in Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2009. “Spacetime the One Substance.” Philosophical Studies 145 (1):131–148.10.1007/s11098-009-9386-6Search in Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2010. “Monism: The Priority of the Whole.” Philosophical Review 119 (1):31–76.10.1215/00318108-2009-025Search in Google Scholar
Sidelle, A. 1989. Necessity, Essence, and Individuation: A Defense of Conventionalism. Cornell University Press.10.7591/9781501746260Search in Google Scholar
Siegel, M. 2016. “Priority Monism Is Contingent.” Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 5 (1):23–32. Ithaca.10.1002/tht3.190Search in Google Scholar
Sklar, L. 1974. Space, Time and Spacetime. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Steinberg, A. 2015. “Priority Monism and Part/Whole Dependence.” Philosophical Studies 172 (8):2025–2031.10.1007/s11098-014-0395-8Search in Google Scholar
Wüthrich, C. 2012. “The Structure of Causal Sets.” Journal for General Philosophy of Science 43 (2):223–241.10.1007/s10838-012-9205-1Search in Google Scholar
Wüthrich, C. 2017a. “Raiders of the Lost Spacetime.” In Towards a Theory of Spacetime Theories, edited by D. Lehmkuhl, G. Schiemann and E. Scholz. New York, NY: Springer.10.1007/978-1-4939-3210-8_11Search in Google Scholar
Wüthrich, C. 2017b. “Philosophie Der Physik.” In Grundriss Wissenschaftsphilosophie: Die Philosophien Der Einzelwissenschaften, edited by S. Lohse and T. Reydson, 201–228. Hamburg: Meiner.Search in Google Scholar
Wüthrich, C., and C. Callender. 2017. “What Becomes of a Causal Set?.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (3):907–925.10.1093/bjps/axv040Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
