Sebastian De Haro, Jeremy Butterfield (2025), Oxford University Press (open-access monograph, CC BY-NC-ND); manuscript also on arXiv — ARXIV-2508.01616
Key takeaways
- A duality is an isomorphism between models that represent a common core (“bare”) theory. Dual models are physically equivalent only when their interpretation maps commute with the duality map, and on the authors’ account dualities neither favour structural realism nor create an in-principle underdetermination threat to cautious scientific realism.
Seeded from the abstract and a skim, before the reading in NOTE-178. What follows is what the work says about itself.
A book-length account of dualities in physics, meaning equivalences between often very different theories. It covers what dualities are, examples from quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, statistical mechanics, QFT and string theory, and the philosophical questions they raise. Part I sets out a “Schema” for duality and relates it to symmetry and interpretation, with simple examples (position–momentum, wave–particle, electric–magnetic, Kramers–Wannier). Part II works through advanced cases up to gauge–gravity duality. Part III takes up theoretical equivalence, the geometric view of theories, emergence, fundamentality, and understanding and explanation.
Standing in the record
Filed from the 2026-09-26 sweep of the papers-feed tracker for philosophy: 55 seconds of active reading over 1 session. It was filed Deferred, unread. NOTE-178 is the close reading of 2026-09-26, and it placed the work: Active — worth reading as the reference treatment of dualities in philosophy of physics. It supplies definitions (the Schema, §3.1, and physical equivalence, §12.1.2, p. 402) and a common vocabulary (internal/external interpretation, common core, quasi-duality) that the rest of the record’s duality works either use or argue against. Its physics examples are admittedly partly conjectural (AdS/CFT, Montonen–Olive and M-theory are unproven), and its realism is a stated position, not a derivation.
When seeded, before the reading in NOTE-178, the entry gave a priority for a deeper reading: medium — a load-bearing monograph (t=55s). The skim captures the Schema and the conclusions, but the book is too long for a full reading, so a follow-up should read chapters 3, 12 and 14 selectively.
What the seeding asked a deeper reading to check (NOTE-178 is that reading):
- This is the reference framework behind LIT-113 (Le Bihan & Read) and LIT-115 (Corfield). A deeper reading should check how the “internal interpretation / common core” notion compares with Le Bihan & Read’s ontological options.
- The claim that dualities do not favour structural realism bears directly on the OSR/ISR works in this batch (LIT-152, LIT-173, LIT-215, LIT-151, LIT-196).
- Chapters 12 and 14 (physical equivalence, emergence, fundamentality) are the philosophically load-bearing ones and were not read.
Access when seeded: arXiv abs page (v1 submitted 3 Aug 2025; “592 pages … manuscript as submitted for production in October 2024”) and the full arXiv PDF (601 PDF pp.) by text extraction. I read the table of contents, the preface, §1.1, the §3.6 conclusion and Chapter 16 (pp. 527–531). Parts II and the rest of III were not read. The OUP DOI is from Crossref (print 2025-07-24, online 2025-08-21); I took the earlier date as first appearance, with arXiv following on 2025-08-03. I did not open the OUP edition.