"Classical electrodynamics is generally understood to be the paradigm of a local and causal physical theory. ...[A] theory with real fields realistically appears to be a local theory. ...But what, exactly, is it for a theory to be local or nonlocal? ...Informally, locality principles are often introduced in causal terms. Newtonian graviational theory... is said to be nonlocal because it allows action-at-a-distance, while the theory of special relativity is often said to imply the locality condition that there can be no superliminal causal propogation. According to a widespread view, however, the notion of causation should have no place in fundamental physics... Thus, Bertrand Russell famously argued that in the advanced sciences the notion of functional dependency has replaced that of causation... "a relic of a bygone age..." ...Russell was wrong. ...I will appeal to Dirac's classical theory of the electron ....the most promising candidate for a fully consistent theory of classical charged particles, is causally nonlocal. ...[T]he theory allows for forces to act where they are not and for superliminal causal propogation."
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Sources
Mathias Frisch, Inconsistency, Asymmetry, and Non-Locality: A Philosophical Investigation of Classical Electrodynamics (2005) Ch. 4 Nonlocality.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Principle_of_locality
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Principle of locality
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