Check Please! De-idealizing De-idealization

Speaker

Luo Yichen

Nanyang Technological University

Moderator

Zhai Chenyu

Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Time

September 17, 2025 (Wednesday) 15:00-17:00

Venue

Lecture Hall, Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences
(4th Floor, South Building, Building 4, CAS Software Park, Zhongguancun South 4th Street)

Organizer

Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Lecture Abstract

There is a question of whether de-idealization is needed for justified use of—for ‘checking’—idealizations. We argue that the standard philosophical account of de-idealization has become too idealized, but that this does not preclude the possibility of justificatory practices that show how models can be used to make inferences about the world. In turn, motivated by examples in physics, we de-idealize de-idealization by relaxing the standards for closeness to more realistic theoretical items, identifying at least three procedures for de-idealization: intra-model, inter-model, and measurement de-idealizations. These highlight ways in which idealizations can—and have been—checked in physics without appealing to the philosopher’s idealized notion of de-idealization.

Yichen Luo （罗懿宸） is a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received Ph.D. in philosophy of physics from the University of Western Ontario. His research spans foundational and epistemological issues in black hole physics and General Relativity and general topics in scientific modeling and explanation. Before his Ph.D., he studied at Tsinghua University and Beijing Normal University.