TY - JOUR
T1 - From Geometry to Conceptual Relativity
AU - Barrett, Thomas William
AU - Halvorson, Hans
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors can be reached at thomaswb@princeton.edu and hhalvors@princeton.edu. We would like to thank Gideon Rosen and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DGE 1148900.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
PY - 2017/10/1
Y1 - 2017/10/1
N2 - The purported fact that geometric theories formulated in terms of points and geometric theories formulated in terms of lines are “equally correct” is often invoked in arguments for conceptual relativity, in particular by Putnam and Goodman. We discuss a few notions of equivalence between first-order theories, and we then demonstrate a precise sense in which this purported fact is true. We argue, however, that this fact does not undermine metaphysical realism.
AB - The purported fact that geometric theories formulated in terms of points and geometric theories formulated in terms of lines are “equally correct” is often invoked in arguments for conceptual relativity, in particular by Putnam and Goodman. We discuss a few notions of equivalence between first-order theories, and we then demonstrate a precise sense in which this purported fact is true. We argue, however, that this fact does not undermine metaphysical realism.
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U2 - 10.1007/s10670-016-9858-y
DO - 10.1007/s10670-016-9858-y
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85017445269
SN - 0165-0106
VL - 82
SP - 1043
EP - 1063
JO - Erkenntnis
JF - Erkenntnis
IS - 5
ER -