1995/1996: SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION: A CRITICAL SURVEY

Foundations of Science, 1995

Philosophical Problems in Science, 2012

2017

While Wesley Salmon attributes the debate on scientific explanation between Carl Hempel and Peter Railton (or between the epistemic and ontic conceptions of scientific explanation, more generally) as one over which conception of explanation is correct, I claim that Hempel and Railton were responding to two different questions altogether. Hempel was addressing a question akin to ‘what is scientific explanation?’, while Railton was focused on a question more similar to ‘what is scientific explanation?’. In this paper I discuss the different questions Hempel and Railton were addressing, and how distinguishing these two questions can aid in the discussion of the requirements and adequacy of models of scientific explanation. While these two questions are clearly inter-related, I claim that we should not judge the adequacy of an answer to one of these questions on the basis of the adequacy of an answer to the other. The Epistemic and Ontic Conceptions of Scientific Explanation Kaetlin Dia...

The problems that exist in relating quantum mechanical phenomena to classical concepts like properties, causes, or entities like particles or waves are well-known and still open to question, so that there is not yet an agreement on what kind of metaphysics lies at the foundations of quantum mechanics. However, physicists constantly use the formal resources of quantum mechanics in order to explain quantum phenomena. The structural account of explanation, therefore, tries to account for this kind of mathematical explanation in physics, and hinges on the following claims: i) scientific models are central in scientific explanation; ii) in some cases the relevant information for the explanation/understanding of a phenomenon P consists in the sole structural properties of the (models displayed by the) theory; iii) in these cases, the interpretation of the formalism in terms of a categorial framework is unessential for the explanation of P and a mathematical model can be at the base of an objective and effective scientific explanation. The present paper will carry a reflection about some issues arising from R.I.G. Hughes and Robert Clifton's works in the attempt to outline some details of structural explanation. § 1 Introduction The pervasive role of mathematics in modern science has cross-fertilized the philosophy of science in many ways. Among them, a topic of growing interest is the epistemological status of mathematical explanations of natural phenomena. An extensive literature can be found on this subject, for instance in cognitive science – concerning the so-called computational explanations (McCulloch and Pitts 1943, Piccinini 2006), where the mental capacities of the brain are explained by its computations – and in more recent times a significant number of papers have investigated the role of mathematical explanations also in biology (Berger 1998). Since the role that mathematics plays in the explanation of natural phenomena can hardly be overrated, it seems remarkably odd that such a topic has been hitherto neglected in the philosophy of physics, the mathematised science par excellence. The current state of scientific knowledge and within it of the relationship between mathematics and explanation is well illustrated by Ruth Berger: " Today's science is often concerned with the behavior of extremely complicated physical systems and with huge data sets that can be organized in many different ways. To deal with this, scientists increasingly rely on mathematical models to process, organize, and generate explanatory information. Since much of the understanding produced by contemporary science is gathered during the process of mathematical modelling, it is incumbent upon philosophical accounts of explanation to accommodate modelling explanations. This is recognized by the semantic view of theories, which identifies mathematical modelling as one of the mains explanatory engines of science. " (Berger 1998, p.308) But the acknowledgement of the central role of models in science did not correspond to the recognition of a similar role in the more restricted field of scientific explanation: " Although many philosophers accept the basic features of the semantic view of theories, there have been surprisingly few attempts to reconcile it with our best philosophical accounts of scientific explanation. […] [C]ausal accounts cannot illuminate precisely those explanatory features of science which the semantic view deems most important. Specifically, causal accounts of explanation cannot accommodate, and often obscure, the crucial role which mathematical modelling

Synthese

I shall endeavor to show that every physical theory since Newton explains without drawing attention to causes–that, in other words, physical theories as physical theories aspire to explain under an ideal quite distinct from that of causal explanation. If I am right, then even if sometimes the explanations achieved by a physical theory are not in violation of the standard of causal explanation, this is purely an accident. For physical theories, as I will show, do not, as such, aim at accommodating the goals or aspirations of causal explanation. This will serve as the founding insight for a new theory of explanation, which will itself serve as the cornerstone of a new theory of scientific method.

Social Science Research Network, 2002

Synthese, 2005

Philosophy of Science, 2022

I argue that Carl Hempel’s pioneering work on scientific explanation introduced an assumption which Hempel never motivated, namely that explanation is an aim of science. Ever since, it largely remained unquestioned in analytic philosophy of science. By expanding the historical scope of the debate on explanation to philosophers from the first half of the 20th century, I show that the debate should include a critical reflection on Hempel’s assumption. This reflection includes two problems: how to motivate one’s position on the aims of scientific knowledge and how to decide which examples count as expressions of those aims.

Fifty years ago, Carl Gustav Hempel published his famous book "Aspects of Scientific Explanation". Since then the number of publications on this subject has grown exponentially. An occasion like this deserves to be commemorated. In this article I offer a modest tribute to this great methodologist of science. This paper tackles the uses of explanation in theoretical sciences. In particular it is concerned with the possibility of causal explanations in physics. What I intend to do is to focus on the issue of whether the explanation of Kepler's empirical laws of the planetary motions can be a causal explanation. More specifically my point is: can the deductive subsumption of Kepler's 3rd Law (also known as Kepler's 1-2-3 law) under theoretical principles provide a causal explanation for the planetary motions? My answer is a definitive no. As a matter of fact, on occasions subsumptions occur under differing theoretical principles that are incompatible with one another. I such cases we would have incompatible scientific explanations. This is precisely the situation facing the scientific explanation of Kepler's laws, in particular the third law. Since there exist incompatible gravitational theories, it is impossible for the scientific account of Kepler's law to be a causal explanation of the planetary motions. This is just one example of the difficulties faced by causal explanations in sciences such as theoretical physcis.