TAIMARA PASSERO

This thesis aims to conduct a philosophical analysis of the program of geometrization in contemporary physics. To do so, we intend to investigate whether and to what extent the characteristics of geometric structure in physical theories, from the late 19th century to the early decades of the 20th century, represent a specific form of scientific thought—described in terms of a style of reasoning, image of science, or heuristic—and refer to a new form of rational intelligibility of reality. If so, we intend to investigate the differences in relation to earlier moments of the project of geometrization in the history of physics and natural philosophy. In the field of physics, and even earlier in natural philosophy since antiquity, one can find different conceptions of the nature of geometry and its role in science. Initially, we find geometry occupying a privileged place in ancient science, both methodologically and epistemologically. In the second period, there was an intense implementation of the program of geometrization in 17th-century natural philosophy, against the backdrop of mechanism. Galileo was one of the main figures of this period, accompanied in this project of geometrization by other authors of the 17th century, each in their own way. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the mathematical tools used by physicists were predominantly analytical rather than geometric. In the 20th century, after the crisis of mechanism, a third period of geometrization in contemporary physics began, represented by the theories of Special and General Relativity and the geometric reformulations of Quantum Mechanics, Classical Mechanics, and Field Theory. To fulfill our initial objective, it will be necessary to take into account both the historical process that allows us to visualize the backdrop of the development of geometry and the epistemological reflection on what constitutes the geometric. The philosophical analysis of the central problem and the associated historiographic aspects will enable us to attribute meaning to sequences of historical facts and find the connecting threads in the historical narrative, providing a visualization of the movement of a plot whose storyline, up to the contemporary era, revolves around a theme—the geometrization of physics.