Abstract
The Anderson–Friedman program is one of the most venerable attempts to capture the novelty introduced by General Relativity. It uses the notion of absolute object, establishes a difference between covariance and invariance and is standardly understood as characterising a background independent theory as one that lacks absolute objects. In this paper I discuss the adequacy of such a characterisation, together with the most recent challenge to the program: the scalar density counterexample. According to it, GR has an absolute object and, therefore, it would not be background independent. I propose a modification to the definition of invariance that helps to tackle the counterexample and connects better with the intuition of dynamically relevant absolute objects being those that act and are not acted on.
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Notes
- 1.
Pitts (2006).
- 2.
- 3.
Anderson (1967).
- 4.
Anderson (1967), p. 81.
- 5.
It must be said that this is strictly true only if one understands, as Friedman does, that under the category of geometrical object only tensors and connections are allowed.
- 6.
Pitts (2006), p. 12.
- 7.
Earman (1989), pp. 45–48.
- 8.
Giulini (2006).
- 9.
Pitts (2006).
- 10.
Giulini (2006).
- 11.
Anderson and Finkelstein (1971).
- 12.
See Giulini (2007).
References
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Giulini D (2007) Remarks on general covariance and/or background independence. Talk given in Causal and classical concepts in science. 3rd International workshop: Causality and relativity, UAB, Barcelona
Pitts JB (2006) Absolute objects and counterexamples: Jones-Geroch dust, Torreti constant curvature, tetrad-spinor and scalar density. Stud Hist Philos Modern Phys 37:347
Acknowledgements
This paper was completed with financial support from a grant (FPU) provided by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, and research project FFI2008-06418-C03-03.
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Sus, A. (2010). Absolute Objects and General Relativity: Dynamical Considerations. In: Suárez, M., Dorato, M., Rédei, M. (eds) EPSA Philosophical Issues in the Sciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3252-2_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3252-2_23
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