I identify and characterize a type of noncausal explanation in physics. I first introduce a distinction, between the physical properties of a system, and the representational properties of the mathematical expressions of the system’s physical properties. Then I introduce a novel kind of property, which I shall call a dual property. This is a special kind of representational property, one for which there is an interpretation as a physical property. It is these dual properties that, I claim, are amenable to (...) noncausal (mathematical, in fact) explanations. I discuss a typical example of such a dual property, and an example of an explanation as to why that dual property holds (the explanation of the quantization of the linear momentum). (shrink)

This paper examines the form of mental representation of scientific theories in scientists and nonscientists. It concludes that images and schemas are not the appropriate form of mental representation for scientific theories but that mental models and perceptual symbols do seem appropriate for representing physical/mechanical phenomena. These forms of mental representation are postulated to have an analogical relation with the world and it is this relationship that gives them strong explanatory power. It is argued that the construct of naïve theories (...) as used in developmental psychology may be the appropriate form of mental representation for non physical/mechanical domains. The paper adopts a strong form of psychologism in the philosophy of science and argues that model-based approaches to scientific theories are more appropriate forms of representation for scientific theories than the formalist approaches that dominate current philosophy of science. (shrink)

The work of Jürgen Habermas has been described as eclectic. It is also prolific. Fortunately for his readers the prolificacy and eclecticism of the author are mitigated by the recurrence of his themes. These concern the emergence and nature of modern occidental society, both from a sociological and philosophical perspective. On a more philosophical level, there is also a strong plea for a paradigm change. The philosophy of the consciousness made the lone subject, in search of knowledge, face the external (...) world. The dialogic philosophy of Habermas sees interlocutors engaged in dialogue about the material, social and internal world and their many aspects. Furthermore, there are many fruitful sidelines: the nature of language, the personality structure of the individual, socialisation and the status of the social sciences. All these various strands are woven into a coherent model of the nature of western civilisation. In the recombination of the contributory constituents, derived from American pragmatism, German Idealism, Hermeneutics, Marxism, the Frankfurt School of Sociology and Systems Theory, lies the originality and breadth of his work. (shrink)

In debates about the nature of scientific explanation, one theme repeatedly arises: that explanation is about providing understanding. However, the concept of understanding has only recently been explored in any depth, and this paper attempts to introduce a useful concept of understanding to that literature and explore it. Understanding is a higher level cognition, the recognition of connections between various pieces of knowledge. This conception can be brought to bear on the conceptual issues that have thus far been unclear in (...) the literature. Though this notion of understanding is broad, explaining various concepts of explanation, it is robust enough to underwrite an objective and useful notion of explanation. (shrink)

In this article, I use a mental models computational account of representation to illustrate some details of my previously presented inferential model of scientific understanding. The hope is to shed some light on possible mechanisms behind the notion of scientific understanding. I argue that if mental models are a plausible approach to modelling cognition, then understanding can best be seen as the coupling of specific rules. I present our beliefs as ?ordinary? conditional rules, and the coupling process as one where (...) the consequent of one ordinary rule (OR) matches and activates the antecedent of the rule to which it is coupled in virtue of the activation of an intermediate ?inference? rule. I argue that on this approach knowledge of an explanation is the activation of ORs in a cognitive hierarchy, while understanding is achieved when those activated ORs are also coupled via correct inference rules. I do not directly address issues regarding the plausibility of mental models themselves. This article should therefore be seen as an exercise in refining the inferential model within an already presupposed computational setting, not one of arguing for the psychological adequacy of computational approaches. (shrink)

In this article I argue that two current accounts of scientific understanding are incorrect and I propose an alternative theory. My new account draws on recent research in cognitive psychology which reveals the importance of making causal and logical inferences on the basis of incoming information. To understand a phenomenon we need to make particular kinds of inferences concerning the explanations we are given. Specifically, we come to understand a phenomenon scientifically by developing mental models that incorporate the correct causal (...) and logical properties responsible for the causes or logical properties of the phenomenon being explained. (shrink)

In recent years a general consensus has been developing in the philosophy of science to the effect that strong social constructivist accounts are unable to adequately account for scientific practice. Recently, however, a number of commentators have formulated an attenuated version of constructivism that purports to avoid the difficulties that plague the stronger claims of its predecessors. Interestingly this attenuated form of constructivism finds philosophical support from a relatively recent turn in the literature concerning scientific realism. Arthur Fine and a (...) number of other commentators have argued that the realism debate ought to be abandoned. The rationale for this argument is that the debate is sterile for it has, it is claimed, no consequence for actual scientific practice, and therefore does not advance our understanding of science or its practice. Recent “softer” accounts of social constructivism also hold a similar agnostic stance to the realism question. I provide a survey of these various agnostic stances and show how they form a general position that I shall refer to as “the anti-philosophical stance”. I then demonstrate that the anti-philosophical stance fails by identifying difficulties that attend its proposal to ban philosophical interpretation. I also provide examples of instances where philosophical stances to the realism question affect scientific practice. (shrink)

McGinn claims that there is nothing “inherently mysterious” about consciousness, even though we will never be able to understand it. The first claim is no more than a rhetorical flourish. The second may be read either as a claim that we are unable to construct an explanatory theory of consciousness, or that any such theory must strike us as unintelligible, in the sense in which quantum mechanics is sometimes said to be unintelligible. On the first reading, McGinn's argument is based (...) on a false premiss . On the second reading, it suffers from the shortcoming that the central notion of intelligibility is too obscure to permit any definite conclusion. I close with a brief discussion of the contemporary tendency to reject non-physicalist approaches to consciousness on a priori grounds. (shrink)

Scientific realists have argued that the truth(likeness) of our theories provides the only explanation for the success of science. I consider alternative explanations proposed by antirealists. I endorse Leplin's contention that neither van Fraassen's Darwinist explanation nor Laudan's methodological explanation provides the sort of explanatory alternative which is called for in this debate. Fine's suggestion--that the empirical adequacy of our theories already explains their success--is more promising for antirealists. Leplin claims that this putative explanation collapses into realism on one reading (...) and into vacuity on another reading. But his analysis conflates three doctrines into two, and one of the three avoids both realism and vacuity. (shrink)

H. Post's conception of quantal particles as non-individuals is set in a formal logico-mathematical framework. By means of this approach certain metaphysical implications of quantum mechanics can be further explored.

Jonathan Kvanvig has argued that “objectual” understanding, i.e. the understanding we have of a large body of information, cannot be reduced to explanatory concepts. In this paper, I show that Kvanvig fails to establish this point, and then propose a framework for reducing objectual understanding to explanatory understanding.

The conceptual structure of orthodox quantum mechanics has not provided a fully satisfactory and coherent description of natural phenomena. With particular attention to the measurement problem, we review and investigate two unorthodox formulations. First, there is the model advanced by GRWP, a stochastic modification of the standard Schrödinger dynamics admitting statevector reduction as a real physical process. Second, there is the ontological interpretation of Bohm, a causal reformulation of the usual theory admitting no collapse of the statevector. Within these two (...) seemingly quite different approaches, we discuss in a comparative manner, several points: The meaning of the state vector, the status of quantum probability, the legitimacy of attributing macro objective properties to physical systems, and the possibility of retrieving the classical limit. Finally, we consider aspects of non-locality and relevant difficulties with formulating a relativistic generalization of the two approaches. (shrink)

The concept of approximate truth plays a prominent role in most versions of scientific realism. However, adequately conceptualizing ?approximate truth? has proved challenging. This article argues that the goal of articulating the concept of approximate truth can be advanced by first investigating the processes by which science accords theories the status of accepted or rejected. Accordingly, this article uses a path diagram model as a visual heuristic for the purpose of showing the processes in science that are involved in determining (...) a theory's status. This ?inductive realist? model of theory status then serves as a starting point for explicating an inductive realist view of approximate truth that, it is argued, can explain instances of the success of science, but does not (1) require science's theories to be strictly true in any world or (2) require a metric for measuring how close an approximately true theory is to some strictly true theory. To show the advantages of the inductive realist approach to approximate truth, an example of a major success story of science, the successful eradication of smallpox, is reviewed and then explained. (shrink)

This article explores whether theory-ladenness makes empirical testing an inse cure foundation for objectivity. Specifically, this article uses path diagrams as visual heuristics to assist in (1) developing a parsimonious representation of the traditional empiricist view of empirical testing, (2) showing how the "New Image" view ostensibly threatens the objectivity of science, (3) proposing a unified, realist theory of empirical testing, (4) developing a representation of the unified theory, (5) exploring several potential threats to objectivity, (6) discussing the proposed theory's (...) implications for social science, and (7) adumbrating three foundational premises for scientific realism. (shrink)

The underdetermination of theory by evidence must be distinguished from holism. The latter is a doctrine about the testing of scientific hypotheses; the former is a thesis about empirically adequate logically incompatible global theories or "systems of the world". The distinction is crucial for an adequate assessment of the underdetermination thesis. The paper shows how some treatments of underdetermination are vitiated by failure to observe this distinction, and identifies some necessary conditions for the existence of multiple empirically equivalent global theories. (...) We consider how empiricists should respond to the possibility of such systems of the world. (shrink)

(1994). Bearers of properties in the quantum mechanical description of nature. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 179-194.

The ubiquity of chaos in classical mechanics (CM), as opposed to the situation in standard quantum mechanics (QM), might be taken as speaking against QM being the fundamental theory of physical phenomena. Bohmian mechanics (BM), as a formulation of quantum theory, may clarify both the existence of chaos in the quantum domain and the nature of the classical limit. Two interesting possibilities are (i) that CM and classical chaos are included in and underwritten by quantum mechanics (BM) or (ii) that (...) BM and CM simply possess a common region of (noninclusive) overlap. In the latter case, neither CM nor QM alone would be sufficient, even in principle, to account for all of the physical phenomena we encounter. In this talk I shall summarize and discuss the implications of some recent work on chaos and on the classical limit within the framework of BM. (shrink)

The use of machine learning instead of traditional models in neuroscience raises significant questions about the epistemic benefits of the newer methods. I draw on the literature on model intelligibility in the philosophy of science to offer some benchmarks for the interpretability of artificial neural networks used as a predictive tool in neuroscience. Following two case studies on the use of ANN’s to model motor cortex and the visual system, I argue that the benefit of providing the scientist with understanding (...) of the brain trades off against the predictive accuracy of the models. This trade-off between prediction and understanding is better explained by a non-factivist account of scientific understanding. (shrink)

The relationship between mathematical formalism, physical interpretation and epistemological appraisal in the practice of physical theorizing is considered in the context of Bohmian mechanics. After laying outthe formal mathematical postulates of thetheory and recovering the historical roots ofthe present debate over the meaning of Bohmianmechanics from the early debate over themeaning of Schrödinger's wave mechanics,several contemporary interpretations of Bohmianmechanics in the literature are discussed andcritiqued with respect to the aim of causalexplanation and an alternative interpretationis proposed. Throughout, the over-arching aimis (...) to exhibit the connections betweenmathematical, ontological and methodologicalquestions in physical theory and to reflect onthe rationality of physical theorizing in lightof the present case. (shrink)

We first examine Howard's analysis of the Bell factorizability condition in terms of 'separability' and 'locality' and then consider his claims that the violations of Bell's inequality by the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics should be interpreted in terms of 'nonseparability' rather than 'nonlocality' and that 'nonseparability' implies the failure of spacetime as a principle of individuation for quantum-mechanical systems. We will argue that his argument for the first claim is less than compelling and that any argument for the second (...) claim will be interpretation-dependent and, hence, not generally valid. (shrink)

This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...) field, it lays down a much-needed marker of progress to date and provides a platform for informed and coherent future analysis and research of the subject. -/- The publication comes at a time of heightened worldwide concern over the standard of science and mathematics education, attended by fierce debate over how best to reform curricula and enliven student engagement in the subjects There is a growing recognition among educators and policy makers that the learning of science must dovetail with learning about science; this handbook is uniquely positioned as a locus for the discussion. -/- The handbook features sections on pedagogical, theoretical, national, and biographical research, setting the literature of each tradition in its historical context. Each chapter engages in an assessment of the strengths and weakness of the research addressed, and suggests potentially fruitful avenues of future research. A key element of the handbook’s broader analytical framework is its identification and examination of unnoticed philosophical assumptions in science and mathematics research. It reminds readers at a crucial juncture that there has been a long and rich tradition of historical and philosophical engagements with science and mathematics teaching, and that lessons can be learnt from these engagements for the resolution of current theoretical, curricular and pedagogical questions that face teachers and administrators. (shrink)

Showcasing original arguments for well-defined positions, as well as clear and concise statements of sophisticated philosophical views, this volume is an ...

Research in science education has recognized the importance of history and philosophy of science (HPS), and this has facilitated the evaluation of science textbooks. Purpose of this chapter is to review research based on analyses of science textbooks that explicitly use a history and philosophy of science framework. This review has focused on studies published in the 15-year period (1996–2010) and has drawn on the following major science education journals: International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, (...) Science Education, and Science & Education. Based on HPS-related criteria, 52 articles were selected for review, and of these 28 were published in Science & Education, which clearly shows the importance of HPS for this journal. Selected articles were classified in the following subject areas depending on the textbooks analyzed: university biology textbooks (n = 2), university chemistry textbooks (n = 14), university physics textbooks (n = 17), and primary, secondary, and high school textbooks (n = 19). Results obtained revealed the following: (a) Most biology, chemistry, physics, and school science textbooks lack a history and philosophy of science perspective; (b) most of the textbooks analyzed were published in the USA and to a much lesser extent in other countries; (c) few studies provided details of the procedure and reliability of the application of criteria/rubric for analyzing textbooks; (d) some of the topics analyzed in the textbooks were nature of science, atomic structure, Newtonian mechanics, quantum mechanics, special theory of relativity, and evolution; (e) textbooks avoided including controversial and difficult aspects of different topics (e.g., concepts of force, weight, heat, temperature, origin of the quantum hypothesis, oil drop experiment, Millikan’s data supported Einstein’s photoelectric equation but not his theory); and (f) various science topics provide an opportunity to illustrate the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, and still very few textbooks referred to this important aspect. As textbooks do refer to laws and theories while referring to historical content, it is concluded that HPS is already “inside” the science curriculum provided textbook authors make an effort to scrutinize the historical reconstructions while dealing with the different topics. (shrink)

The article reviews Christopher Hitchcock’s Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Science, aims to present contemporary issues in philosophy of science through a series of eight debates between leading analytic philosophers in the given specialist field. Each contributor argues for or against a proposed motion of the debate, ranging from issues of metaphysics and epistemology of science to specific philosophical questions in physics, biology and psychology. In that they draw on a wealth of techniques from the practice of philosophy of science (...) from conceptual clarifications to invocation of examples from scientific practice. Nonethless, against the background of philosophical work associated with contemporary scientific practice the topics selected for this volume seem limited in both depth and scope. The volume’s great worth is in presenting ‘philosophy of science in action’ by exercising many tricks of the trade in several self-contained chapters. (shrink)

Descartes’ derivation of the primary qualities of matter and their role in explaining observed physical phenomena are briefly reviewed. The lesson drawn from Descartes’ methodology of explanation is that we ought to aim to reduce complex phenomena to simple unifying principles and conceptual primitives. Three proposed solutions to the apparent paradoxes in contemporary quantum physics (primarily associated with the notion of entanglement) are briefly compared with lessons taken from Descartes. It is argued that further research in this field should provide (...) criteria for selecting modifications to the standard (largely Cartesian) conceptual scheme, along the lines of either visualisable causality or the physical spatial separability of all material objects. (shrink)

Students in interdisciplinary science educations are faced with the challenge of combining knowledge and standards from different disciplines. To help them overcome this challenge it would be helpful to reflect more explicitly on what differences in epistemic aims there may be between the different disciplines. To aid further studies that will strengthen such discussions this paper outlines an empirical method that can be used to expose possible qualitative differences in explanations from different disciplines. The method is based on the use (...) of science textbooks as sources of explanations. I will argue that it is important to be very clear about how explanations are identified in the sources if the aim of the study is to make a strong empirical claim about the nature of explanations. Following a discussion of similar studies I will present an alternative procedure for identifying explanations in written sources that suits the purposes of this study better. A pilot study is then presented to illustrate the method and its limitations. (shrink)