Contents

I Ontology and Quantum Field Theory xi

1 Introduction 1

2 Philosophical Background 7
2.1 Atomism in the History of Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 Philosophical Versus Scientific Atomism . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 Atomism and Reductionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3 Ontology and Physics 17

3.1 Some Main Themes in Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 A Brief History of Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3 The Analytical Tradition of Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4 No-Go Theorems as Tools for the Ontological Practician . 23
3.5 Symmetries, Heuristics and Objectivity . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4 History and Basic Structure of QFT 27

4.1 The Early Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.2 The Emergence of Infinities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.3 The Taming of Infinities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.4 The Lagrangian Formulation of QFT . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.5 Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

5 Alternative Approaches 41
5.1 Deficiencies of the Standard Formulation of QFT . . . . . 41
5.2 The Algebraic Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.3 Basic Ideas of AQFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

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6 The Ontological Significance of QFT and AQFT 47
6.1 QM Versus QFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6.2 AQFT and the Ideal Language Philosophy . . . . . . . . . 51
6.3 QFT Versus AQFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6.4 The Philosophical Interest in (A)QFT . . . . . . . . . . . 58

II Classical Ontologies 61
7 Classical vs. Revisionary Ontologies 63
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7.2 Aristotle’s Theory of Substances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
7.3 Substance Ontologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
7.4 Substances Under Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
7.5 Substance Ontology and Quantum Physics . . . . . . . . . 79
7.5.1 Incompatible Observables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
7.5.2 Non-Vanishing Vacuum Expectation Values . . . . 81

8 Particle Interpretation of QFT 83

8.1 The Particle Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
8.1.1 General Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
8.1.2 Wigner’s Analysis of the Poincaré Group . . . . . . 87
8.2 Theory and Experiment in Elementary Particle Physics:
Is a Particle Track a Track of a Particle? . . . . . . . . . . 94
8.3 Localization Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
8.3.1 The Clash of Causality and Localizability . . . . . 99
8.3.2 Locating the Origin of Non-Localizability:
A Comparative Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
8.4 Further Problems for a Particle Interpretation of QFT . . 110
8.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

9 Field Interpretations of QFT 113

9.1 The Field Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
9.2 Fields as Basic Entities of QFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
9.2.1 The Role of Field Operators in QFT . . . . . . . . 115
9.2.2 Indirect Evidence for Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
9.3 Fields Versus Algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

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CONTENTS v

III Revisionary Ontologies 119

10 Process Ontology 121
10.1 The Strands of Process Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
10.2 Why Process Ontology in QM and QFT? . . . . . . . . . . 122
10.3 A Case Study: Feynman Diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
10.4 Evaluation of the Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
10.5 Remaining Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

11 Trope Ontology I: The Ontological

Status of Properties 135
11.1 The Problem of Universals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
11.2 The Traditional Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
11.3 A New Solution: Trope Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
11.4 An Evaluation of the Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
11.5 Conclusion and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

12 Trope Ontology II: Properties and

Things 151

IV The Trope Bundle Interpretation 155

13 Dispositional Trope Ontology 157
13.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
13.2 Trope Bundles and Many-Particle Systems . . . . . . . . . 159
13.2.1 ‘Elementary Particles’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
13.2.2 Individuality of Quantum Objects . . . . . . . . . . 160
13.2.3 Dispositions and Tropes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
13.2.4 An Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
13.3 The Trope Bundle Interpretation of AQFT . . . . . . . . . 169
13.3.1 AQFT as a Model of Trope Ontology . . . . . . . . 170
13.3.2 An Algebraic Argument for the Bundle Conception 171
13.3.3 Representations and Properties/Tropes . . . . . . . 174
13.3.4 Outlook on Potential Problems and Further Work . 178
13.3.5 The Explanatory Power of the Trope Bundle
Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

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vi CONTENTS
13.4 Summing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

V Concluding Remarks 183

14 Physics and Philosophy 185

15 Summing Up 187
15.1 General Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
15.2 Comparison of Ontologies for QFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
15.2.1 Particles Versus Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
15.2.2 Processes Versus Tropes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
15.2.3 The Merits of Dispositional Trope Ontology . . . . 194

VI Appendices 197
Abbreviations and Notation 199

A Special Relativity Theory:

Some Notation and Required Results 201

B Ontologically Oriented Survey of

Quantum Mechanics 203
B.1 The Hilbert Space Formalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
B.1.1 States and Observables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
B.1.2 Probability Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
B.1.3 Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
B.2 Problems for an Ontology of QM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
B.2.1 The Problem of Individuation . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
B.2.2 The Problem of Reidentifiability . . . . . . . . . . . 216
B.2.3 The Measurement Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

C Advanced Foundational Topics in QFT 221

C.1 Gauge Invariance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
C.2 Effective Field Theories and Renormalization . . . . . . . . 223
C.3 String Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

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CONTENTS vii
D Assumptions and Results of AQFT 227
D.1 Assumptions of AQFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
D.2 Representations and States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
D.3 Superselection Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

References 240

Physics Glossary 257

Philosophy Glossary 273

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Download Date | 10/9/19 3:06 PM