dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaAgainst Pointillisme about Mechanics
| Authors | Jeremy Butterfield |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0512064 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0512064 |
| Journal | Forthcoming 2006, in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science |
Abstract
This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or point-sized objects located there; so that properties of spatial or spatiotemporal regions and their material contents are determined by the point-by-point facts. More specifically, this paper argues against pointillisme about the concept of velocity in classical mechanics; especially against proposals by Tooley, Robinson and Lewis. A companion paper argues against pointillisme about (chrono)-geometry, as proposed by Bricker. To avoid technicalities, I conduct the argument almost entirely in the context of ``Newtonian'' ideas about space and time, and the classical mechanics of point-particles, i.e. extensionless particles moving in a void. But both the debate and my arguments carry over to relativistic physics.
{
"annotation_id": "3fe4a65b-7115-4c71-b578-7f5d8b1a08d9",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:03.609000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:03.609000Z",
"file_hash": "7a8d73e3726da0fb66c2426af8c38f42540b3d25b42f67d4b7c0b76a2a4b24d6",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the\ndoctrine that a physical theory\u0027s fundamental quantities are defined at points\nof space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or\npoint-sized objects located there; so that properties of spatial or\nspatiotemporal regions and their material contents are determined by the\npoint-by-point facts.\n More specifically, this paper argues against pointillisme about the concept\nof velocity in classical mechanics; especially against proposals by Tooley,\nRobinson and Lewis. A companion paper argues against pointillisme about\n(chrono)-geometry, as proposed by Bricker.\n To avoid technicalities, I conduct the argument almost entirely in the\ncontext of ``Newtonian\u0027\u0027 ideas about space and time, and the classical\nmechanics of point-particles, i.e. extensionless particles moving in a void.\nBut both the debate and my arguments carry over to relativistic physics.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0512064",
"authors": [
"Jeremy Butterfield"
],
"categories": [
"physics.class-ph",
"physics.gen-ph"
],
"journal_ref": "Forthcoming 2006, in The British Journal for the Philosophy of\n Science",
"title": "Against Pointillisme about Mechanics",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0512064"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "492d43de-49f0-4610-b030-ef6020a446cc",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}