Framing the Epistemic Schism of Statistical Mechanics

• Autores: Javier Anta
• Localización: Actas del X Congreso de la Sociedad de Lógica, Metodología y Filosofía de la Ciencia en España: Salamanca, 16-19 de noviembre de 2021 / Sociedad de Lógica, Metodología y Filosofía de la Ciencia en España (aut.), Ana Cuevas Badallo (dir. congr.), Obdulia M. Torres González (dir. congr.), Víctor Aranda (dir. congr.), Andrei Moldovan (dir. congr.), 2021, ISBN 978-84-09-35510-5, págs. 261-265
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto Completo Libro (pdf)
• Resumen

  • In this talk I present the main results from Anta (2021), namely, that the theoretical division between Boltzmannian and Gibbsian statistical mechanics should be understood as a separation in the epistemic capabilities of this physical discipline. In particular, while from the Boltzmannian framework one can generate powerful explanations of thermal processes by appealing to their microdynamics, from the Gibbsian framework one can predict observable values in a computationally effective way. Finally, I argue that this statistical mechanical schism contradicts the Hempelian (1958) thesis that the predictive power of a scientific theory is directly proportional to its explanatory potential, and vice versa.