Discussing Pseudoprocessual Ontology in Physics: An Overview

Abstract

In this paper, drawing on previous work, we examine the processualist ontology that Phil Dowe has defended in the context of his general account of physical causation, based on the possession of conserved quantities. This ontology, which distinguishes one causal entity (causal processes) and three non-causal entities (pseudoprocesses, spatial worms, and temporal worms), assumes physical and metaphysical commitments that we have discussed elsewhere. In the present article, we synthesize this discussion from the philosophical perspective and, from the physical perspective, formulate a reductive critique of Dowe’s tetradic ontology by analyzing in detail some optical phenomena that would seem to support his view. To this end, we appeal to geometrical optics and wave optics and show that, in these areas, an ontological description of such phenomena in terms of pseudoprocesses is dispensable and can simply be replaced by a description in terms of spatial and temporal worms. We then focus on the phenomenon of shadows, or the absence of light, which Dowe repeatedly uses to motivate the indispensability of positing pseudoprocesses in his ontology. In this case, we show, against Dowe, that such phenomena should be reinterpreted as another type of optical phenomenon, which behaves ontologically as temporal mereological wholes and which, moreover, can carry conserved quantities. Such behavior allows them to be more appropriately characterized as types of temporal worms, thereby reducing their autonomous ontological status.