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Some Remarks on Recent Formalist Responses to the Hole Argument

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Peer-reviewed

Repository DOI


Change log

Authors

Menon, Tushar 
Read, James 

Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pIn a recent article, Halvorson and Manchak (Br J Philos Sci, Forthcoming) claim that there is no basis for the Hole Argument, because (in a certain sense) hole isometries are unique. This raises two important questions: (a) does their argument succeed?; (b) how does this formalist response to the Hole Argument relate to other recent responses to the Hole Argument in the same tradition—in particular, that of Weatherall (Br J Philos Sci 69(2):329–350, 2018)? In this article, jats:italicad</jats:italic> (a), we argue that Halvorson and Manchak’s claim does not go through; jats:italicad</jats:italic> (b), we argue that although one jats:italicprima facie</jats:italic> plausible reading would see Halvorson and Manchak as filling an important hole (no pun intended) in Weatherall’s argument, in fact this reading is implausible; there is no need to supplement Weatherall’s work with Halvorson and Manchak’s results.</jats:p>

Description

Acknowledgements: First and foremost, we are very grateful to J. B. Manchak and Hans Halvorson for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. We also thank Jeremy Butterfield, Sebastian de Haro, Neil Dewar, Henrique Gomes, Caspar Jacobs, Olivia Kelly, John Norton, and Oliver Pooley for helpful discussions and feedback. J.R. is supported by the John Templeton Foundation, grant number 61521, and also thanks the Leverhulme Trust for their support.

Keywords

5003 Philosophy, 5004 Religious Studies, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields

Journal Title

Foundations of Physics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0015-9018
1572-9516

Volume Title

54

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC