PreprintCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Zenodo
What Do Fundamental Statements Do? Functional Roles and Ontological Determination in Physical Theories
- 1Islamic Azad University of Tabriz
Abstract
Labels such as law, principle, postulate, and axiom group statements that perform different tasks in physical theories. This article argues that a component’s inferential warrant depends on its role within a specified theoretical architecture, not on its label. It distinguishes six functional roles and operationalizes them by three diagnostic tests. It then separates formal structure, empirical connection, and physical ontology, and analyzes ontological determination along four dimensions. Comparisons among classical mechanics, relativity, and quantum mechanics, followed by audits of complementarity and the measurement problem, show that formal precision and empirical success constrain ontology without selecting a unique realization.
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BibTeX
@misc{ebrahimi2026what,
title = {{What Do Fundamental Statements Do? Functional Roles and Ontological Determination in Physical Theories}},
author = {Behruz Ebrahimi},
howpublished = {Zenodo},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23470646},
url = {https://zenodo.org/records/23470646},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - What Do Fundamental Statements Do? Functional Roles and Ontological Determination in Physical Theories
AU - Behruz Ebrahimi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
PB - Zenodo
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.23470646
UR - https://zenodo.org/records/23470646
AB - Labels such as law, principle, postulate, and axiom group statements that perform different tasks in physical theories. This article argues that a component’s inferential warrant depends on its role within a specified theoretical architecture, not on its label. It distinguishes six functional roles and operationalizes them by three diagnostic tests. It then separates formal structure, empirical connection, and physical ontology, and analyzes ontological determination along four dimensions. Comparisons among classical mechanics, relativity, and quantum mechanics, followed by audits of complementarity and the measurement problem, show that formal precision and empirical success constrain ontology without selecting a unique realization.
ER -