Chapter 1 A Trope-Bundle Ontology for Field Theory

Abstract

Field theories have been central to physics over the past 150 years, and there are several theories in contemporary physics in which physical fields play key causal and explanatory roles. This chapter discusses a novel field trope-bundle (FTB) ontology on which fields are composed of bundles of particularized property instances called “tropes.” It presents a dominant view about the ontology of fields. Ontological parsimony, flexibility, and moderate nominalism are attractive features of field trope-bundle ontologies for field theories in physics. FTB approaches have significant advantages over traditional substance-attribute approaches, and the chapter explains the way such trope-bundle ontologies can be constructed for classic and quantum field theories.