The Explanatory Power of Phase Spaces

David Malament argued that Hartry Field’s nominalisation program is unlikely to be able to deal with non-space-time theories such as phasespace theories. We give a specific example of such a phase-space theory and argue that this presentation of the theory delivers explanations that are not available in the classical presentation of the theory. This suggests that even if phase-space theories can be nominalised, the resulting theory will not have the explanatory power of the original. Phase-space theories thus raise problems for nominalists that go beyond Malament’s initial concerns.