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Phase Transitions: A Challenge for Intertheoretic Reduction?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Patricia Palacios
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Abstract

I analyze the extent to which classical phase transitions, both first order and continuous, pose a challenge for intertheoretic reduction. My contention is that phase transitions are compatible with a notion of reduction that combines Nagelian reduction and what Thomas Nickles called Reduction2. I also argue that, even if the same approach to reduction applies to both types of phase transitions, there is a crucial difference in their physical treatment: in addition to the thermodynamic limit, in continuous phase transitions there is a second infinite limit involved, which marks an important difference in the reduction of first-order and continuous phase transitions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 612 - 640
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I am extremely grateful to Vincent Ardourel, Federico Benitez, Lapo Casetti, Erik Curiel, Benjamin Feintzeig, Sam Fletcher, Roman Frigg, Stephan Hartmann, Laurenz Hudetz, Karim Thébault, Giovanni Valente, Pauline van Wierst, Jim Weatherall, Charlotte Werndl and Jingyi Wu for helpful discussions and detailed comments on an earlier draft. I am also grateful to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

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