The Theoretical Practices of Physics

R. I. G. Hughes is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina.

Hughes has an unparalleled ability to draw meaningful connections between important issues in the philosophy of physics and more general issues in the arts and sciences at large, well beyond the confines of academic philosophy. He does this with both panache and analytical rigor. The ensuing diversity of aims, approaches, and detailed case studies is the most striking hallmark of the book, making it a very unusual and charismatic contribution to contemporary philosophy of physics... a highly recommended book. It provides much detailed analysis of some interesting new case studies in theoretical physics and contains plenty of subtle distinctions, profound insights and fascinating quirky interpretations... a highly original, beautifully creative book... It breaks new ground in philosophy of physics and deserves to be read by everyone with an interest in the field.

• Foreword ; 1. Criticism, Logical Empiricism, and the General Theory of Relativity ; 2. Theoretical Practice: The Bohm-Pines Quartet ; 3. Laws of Physics, the Representational Account of Theories, and Newton's Principia ; 4. Modelling, the Brownian Motion and the Disunities of Physics ; 5. Models and Representation ; 6. The Ising Model, Computer Simulation, and Universal Physics ; 7. Theoretical Explanation ; 8. The Discourse of Physics ; Bibliography