John Earman

Further information: Hole argument

Earman has notably contributed to debate about the "hole argument". The hole argument was invented for different purposes by Albert Einstein late in 1913 as part of his quest for the general theory of relativity (GTR). It was revived and reformulated in the modern context by John3 (a short form for the "three Johns": John Earman, John Stachel, and John Norton).

With the GTR, the traditional debate between absolutism and relationalism has been shifted to whether or not spacetime is a substance, since the GTR largely rules out the existence of, e.g., absolute positions. The "hole argument" offered by John Earman is a powerful argument against manifold substantialism.

This is a technical mathematical argument but can be paraphrased as follows:

Define a function ${\displaystyle d}$ as the identity function over all elements over the manifold ${\displaystyle M}$, excepting a small neighbourhood (topology) ${\displaystyle H}$ belonging to ${\displaystyle M}$. Over ${\displaystyle H}$, ${\displaystyle d}$ comes to differ from identity by a smooth function.

With use of this function ${\displaystyle d}$ we can construct two mathematical models, where the second is generated by applying ${\displaystyle d}$ to proper elements of the first, such that the two models are identical prior to the time ${\displaystyle t=0}$, where ${\displaystyle t}$ is a time function created by a foliation of spacetime, but differ after ${\displaystyle t=0}$.

These considerations show that, since substantialism allows the construction of holes, that the universe must, on that view, be indeterministic. Which, Earman argues, is a case against substantialism, as the case between determinism or indeterminism should be a question of physics, not of our commitment to substantialism.

Bibliography

Books

• Earman, John (1986). A primer on determinism. Dordrecht Boston Norwell, MA, U.S.A: D. Reidel Pub. Co. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic. ISBN   978-90-277-2240-9. OCLC   13859390.
• Earman, John (1989). World enough and space-time : absolute versus relational theories of space and time. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. ISBN   978-0-262-55021-5. OCLC   19130687.
• Earman, John (1992). Bayes or bust? : a critical examination of bayesian confirmation theory. Place of publication not identified: Bradford Books. ISBN   978-0-262-51900-7. OCLC   948376038.
• Earman, John (1995). Bangs, crunches, whimpers, and shrieks : singularities and acausalities in relativistic spacetimes. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-509591-3. OCLC   65223337.
• Earman, John (2000). Hume's abject failure : the argument against miracles. Oxford, England New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-512737-9. OCLC   63294618. ^[5]

Selected articles

• Earman, John (2006). "The "Past Hypothesis": Not even false". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. 37 (3). Elsevier BV: 399–430. Bibcode:2006SHPMP..37..399E. doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2006.03.002. ISSN   1355-2198.
• "In the Beginning, At the End, and All in Between: Cosmological Aspects of Time," F. Stadler and M. Stöltzner (eds.), Time and History: Proceedings of the 28th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium (Ontos-Verlag, 2006).
• Earman, John (2007). "ASPECTS OF DETERMINISM IN MODERN PHYSICS". Philosophy of Physics. Elsevier. doi:10.1016/b978-044451560-5/50017-8.
• Earman, John (May 30, 2008). "Essential self-adjointness: implications for determinism and the classical–quantum correspondence". Synthese. 169 (1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 27–50. doi:10.1007/s11229-008-9341-7. ISSN   0039-7857. S2CID   40824480.
• Earman, John; Smeenk, Christopher; Wüthrich, Christian (May 7, 2008). "Do the laws of physics forbid the operation of time machines?". Synthese. 169 (1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 91–124. doi: 10.1007/s11229-008-9338-2 . ISSN   0039-7857. S2CID   6367326.
• Earman, John (September 27, 2008). "Superselection Rules for Philosophers". Erkenntnis. 69 (3). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 377–414. doi:10.1007/s10670-008-9124-z. ISSN   0165-0106. S2CID   120013594.
• Earman, John (2011). "The Unruh effect for philosophers". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. 42 (2). Elsevier BV: 81–97. Bibcode:2011SHPMP..42...81E. doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2011.04.001. ISSN   1355-2198.

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References

1. "John Earman". University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
2. Rescher, Nicholas (July 6, 2006). "THE BERLIN SCHOOL OF LOGICAL EMPIRICISM AND ITS LEGACY" (PDF). University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
3. "John Earman | History and Philosophy of Science | University of Pittsburgh". www.hps.pitt.edu.
4. "About the Archive – PhilSci-Archive". philsci-archive.pitt.edu.
5. "John Earman Bibliography".

External links

• John Earman at PhilPapers

John Earman
Born	1942 (age 82–83) Washington D.C., U.S.
Education
Education	Princeton University (1968, PhD)
Thesis	Some Aspects of Temporal Asymmetry (1968)
Doctoral advisor	Carl Gustav Hempel Paul Benacerraf

Authority control databases
International	ISNI VIAF WorldCat
National	Germany United States France BnF data Czech Republic Netherlands Norway Croatia Poland Israel Belgium
Academics	CiNii Mathematics Genealogy Project PhilPeople MathSciNet
People	DDB
Other	IdRef