Moderate Physical Perspectivalism

TL;DR

The paper advocates for moderate physical perspectivalism, which asserts that all empirically meaningful descriptions in physics should be relativized to a perspective, supported by scientific and philosophical reasons.

Contribution

It distinguishes between strong and moderate physical perspectivalism and argues for the latter based on epistemic humility and social aspects of science.

Findings

Moderate perspectivalism aligns better with scientific practice.

Scientific evidence favors relativization of descriptions to perspectives.

Philosophical considerations support moderate over strong perspectivalism.

Abstract

Recent developments in foundations of physics have given rise to a class of views suggesting that physically meaningful descriptions must always be relativized to a physical perspective. In this article I distinguish between strong physical perspectivalism, which maintains that all facts must be relativized to a perspective, and moderate physical perspectivalism, which maintains that all empirically meaningful descriptions must be relativized to a perspective. I argue that both scientific evidence and philosophical considerations support moderate physical perspectivalism over strong physical perspectivalism. In particular, motivations connected to epistemic humility and the social nature of science are more compatible with the moderate approach.