Philosophy of Physics Graduate Lunch Seminar (Thursday - Week 1, TT25)

Abstract: Things appear to be different from different perspectives. The standard reply to this perspectival variance is to claim that such differences are mere appearances and not part of reality. Lipman (2016) argues that special relativity (SR) radically extends this perspectival variance to most of the ways in which things appear to us. Given the wealth of properties subject to perspectival variance, Lipman argues that denying their reality is problematic. On the other hand, by adopting a picture of reality as fragmented, one can embrace the reality of such variant properties (Lipman 2018). I argue that in so far as such a fragmentalist metaphysics may be motivated, it is not motivated by SR. Instead, it is possible to understand SR within a single unified reality, and it is unclear whether the fragmentalist approach to SR delivers the advantages Lipman advertises.

I will start by explaining that SR does not establish the kind of perspectival variance envisaged by Lipman. As a consequence, Lipman's arguments are left severely weakened. I will then sketch an alternative to the fragmentalist account of SR, thus illustrating how one can can understand SR within a single, unified reality. A comparison between these two approaches shows that fragmentalism fails to deliver the advantages Lipman advertises.