The Delicacy of Counterfactuals in General Relativityud (Or: If General Relativity Were Not Difficult, Its Counterfactualsud Would Be Easy)

摘要

General relativity poses serious problems for counterfactualud propositions peculiar to it as a physical theory, problems that haveud gone unremarked on in the physics and in the philosophy literature.ud Because these problems arise from the dynamical nature of spacetimeud geometry, they are shared by all schools of thought on howud counterfactuals should be interpreted and understood. Given theud role of counterfactuals in the characterization of, interud alia, many accounts of scientific laws, theory-confirmation andud causation, general relativity once again presents us withud idiosyncratic puzzles any attempt to analyze and understand theud nature of scientific knowledge and of science itself must face.