Most scientific models are not physical objects, and this raises important questions. What sort of entity are models, what is truth in a model, and how do we learn about models? In this paper I argue that models share important aspects in common with literary fiction, and that therefore theories of fiction can be brought to bear on these questions. In particular, I argue that the pretence theory as developed by Walton (1990, Mimesis as make-believe: on the foundations of the (...) representational arts. Harvard University Press, Cambridge/MA) has the resources to answer these questions. I introduce this account, outline the answers that it offers, and develop a general picture of scientific modelling based on it. (shrink)

Achieving understanding of nature is one of the aims of science. In this paper we offer an analysis of the nature of scientific understanding that accords with actual scientific practice and accommodates the historical diversity of conceptions of understanding. Its core idea is a general criterion for the intelligibility of scientific theories that is essentially contextual: which theories conform to this criterion depends on contextual factors, and can change in the course of time. Our analysis provides a general account of (...) how understanding is provided by scientific explanations of diverse types. In this way, it reconciles conflicting views of explanatory understanding, such as the causal-mechanical and the unificationist conceptions. (shrink)

Various scientific theories stand in a reductive relation to each other. In a recent article, we have argued that a generalized version of the Nagel-Schaffner model (GNS) is the right account of this relation. In this article, we present a Bayesian analysis of how GNS impacts on confirmation. We formalize the relation between the reducing and the reduced theory before and after the reduction using Bayesian networks, and thereby show that, post-reduction, the two theories are confirmatory of each other. We (...) then ask when a purported reduction should be accepted on epistemic grounds. To do so, we compare the prior and posterior probabilities of the conjunction of both theories before and after the reduction and ask how well each is confirmed by the available evidence. (shrink)

In this paper, we wish to outline the main historical moments which have led to the first exact measurements of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon.

ArgumentIn the theory-dominated view of scientific experimentation, all relations of theory and experiment are taken on a par; namely, that experiments are performed solely to ascertain the conclusions of scientific theories. As a result, different aspects of experimentation and of the relations of theory to experiment remain undifferentiated. This in turn fosters a notion of theory-ladenness of experimentation (TLE) that is toocoarse-grainedto accurately describe the relations of theory and experiment in scientific practice. By contrast, in this article, I suggest that (...) TLE should be understood as anumbrella conceptthat has different senses. To this end, I introduce a three-fold distinction among the theories of high-energy particle physics (HEP) as background theories, model theories, and phenomenological models. Drawing on this categorization, I contrast two types of experimentation, namely, “theory-driven” and “exploratory” experiments, and I distinguish between the “weak” and “strong” senses of TLE in the context of scattering experiments from the history of HEP. This distinction enables identifying the exploratory character of the deep-inelastic electron-proton scattering experiments – performed at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) between the years 1967 and 1973 – thereby shedding light on a crucial phase of the history of HEP, namely, the discovery of “scaling,” which was the decisive step towards the construction of quantum chromo-dynamics as a gauge theory of strong interactions. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that structural explanations are an effective way of explaining well known relativistic phenomena like length contraction and time dilation, and then try to understand how this can be possible by looking at the literature on scientific models. In particular, we ask whether and how a model like that provided by Minkowski spacetime can be said to represent the physical world, in such a way that it can successfully explain physical phenomena structurally. We conclude by claiming (...) that a partial isomorphic approach to scientific representation can supply an answer only if supplemented by a robust injection of pragmatic factors. (shrink)

This paper aims 1) to introduce the notion of theoretical story as a resource and source of constraint for the construction and assessment of models of phenomena; 2) to show the relevance of this notion for a better understanding of the role and nature of values in scientific activity. The reflection on the role of values and value judgments in scientific activity should be attentive, I will argue, to the distinction between models and the theoretical story that guides and constrains (...) their construction. The aim of scientific activity is to develop understanding of phenomena, and something that serves this aim and contributes to the development of understanding has a cognitive value. Cognitive values are the features that something that plays a role in scientific activity should have so that it can serve its aim. I will focus my attention on the features of the theoretical story and of the models. (shrink)

Making sense of modeling: beyond representation Content Type Journal Article Category Original paper in Philosophy of Science Pages 335-352 DOI 10.1007/s13194-011-0032-8 Authors Isabelle Peschard, Philosophy Department, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA Journal European Journal for Philosophy of Science Online ISSN 1879-4920 Print ISSN 1879-4912 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 3.

Die Frage, was eine wissenschaftliche Erklärung ist, stellt seit mehr als einem halben Jahrhundert ein zentrales Thema der Wissenschaftsphilosophie dar. Die heutige Diskussion begann mit einer richtungsweisenden Arbeit von Carl Hempel im Jahre 1942 über den Erklärungsbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft. In dieser Arbeit gab Hempel, frühere Überlegungen von John Stuart Mill, Karl Popper und anderen präzisierend, eine formale Definition der Erklärung eines singulären Faktums.1 Mit seiner dem zugrunde liegenden Auffassung, dass die Wissenschaften sehr wohl in der Lage sind, Erklärungen zu (...) liefern, setzt sich Hempel ab von den zur damaligen Zeit vorherrschenden antimetaphysisch gestimmten Erklärungsskeptikern wie Pierre Duhem. Es ist jedoch wichtig zu betonen, dass Hempels Definition des Konzeptes der wissenschaftlichen Erklärung nicht wesentlich über das Deskriptive hinaus geht und damit auch und gerade von Empiristen akzeptiert werden kann. Bekanntlich versteht man unter einer Erklärung in Hempels Deduktiv-Nomologischen (D-N) Modell ein deduktiv gültiges Argument, zu dessen Prämisse (dem sog. Explanans) mindestens ein universelles Gesetz und eine Menge von singulären Sätzen gehört und dessen Konklusion das zu erklärende Faktum (das sog. Explanandum) ist. (shrink)

A recent proposal by Norton (2003) to show that a simple Newtonian system can exhibit stochastic acausal behavior by giving rise to spontaneous movements of a mass on the dome of a certain shape is examined. We discuss the physical significance of an often overlooked and yet important Lipschitz condition the violation of which leads to the existence of anomalous nontrivial solutions in this and similar cases. We show that the Lipschitz condition is closely linked with the time reversibility of (...) certain solutions in Newtonian mechanics and the failure to incorporate this condition within Newtonian mechanics may unsurprisingly lead to physically impossible solutions that have no serious metaphysical implications. ‡I thank Steven Savitt of the Philosophy Department at the University of British Columbia for drawing my attention to the Lipschitz condition, and Alexei Cheviakov of the Mathematics Department at the University of British Columbia for useful discussions. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Let me first state that I like Antti Revonsuo’s discussion of the various methodological and interpretational problems in neuroscience. It shows how careful and methodologically reflected scientists have to proceed in this fascinating field of research. I have nothing to add here. Furthermore, I am very sympathetic towards Revonsuo’s general proposal to call for a Philosophy of Neuroscience that stresses foundational issues, but also focuses on methodological and explanatory strategies.2 In a footnote of his paper, Revonsuo complains – as many (...) others do today – about what is sometimes called “physics imperialism”. This is the view that physics dominates the philosophy of science. I am not sure if this is still the case nowadays, but it is certainly historically correct that almost all work in the field of methodology centered around cases from physics. Although this has been changing, there are still plenty of special sciences philosophers did not worry about much. Admittedly, I am myself a trained physicist and not a neuroscientist and will therefore probably be biased negatively. As it is, I will discuss some examples from physics in order to illustrate my points. (shrink)

Wir Menschen streben danach, die Wirklichkeit zu verstehen. Eine Welt, die wir gut verstehen, ist eine, die wir "im Griff" haben, mit der wir gut umgehen können. Aber was heißt es genau, ein Phänomen der Wirklichkeit zu verstehen? Wie sieht unser Weltbild aus, wenn wir ein Phänomen verstanden haben? Welche Bedingungen müssen erfüllt sein, damit Verstehen gelingt? Die Kernthese des Buches ist, dass wir Phänomene der Wirklichkeit durch noetische Integration verstehen. Wir verstehen Phänomene, indem wir den entsprechenden Informationseinheiten eine sinnvolle (...) und angemessene Position in unserem Weltbild zuschreiben und insofern unser Weltbild in gewissem Maße der Wirklichkeit entspricht. (shrink)

While discussions of the imagination have been limited in philosophy of science, this is beginning to change. In recent years, a vast literature on imagination in science has emerged. This paper surveys the current field, including the changing attitudes towards the scientific imagination, the fiction view of models, how the imagination can lead to knowledge and understanding, and the value of different types of imagination. It ends with a discussion of the gaps in the current literature, indicating avenues for future (...) research. (shrink)

There is a deeply entrenched view in philosophy and physics, the closed systems view, according to which isolated systems are conceived of as fundamental. On this view, when a system is under the influence of its environment this is described in terms of a coupling between it and a separate system which taken together are isolated. We argue against this view, and in favor of the alternative open systems view, for which systems interacting with their environment are conceived of as (...) fundamental, and the environment's influence is represented via the dynamical equations that govern the system's evolution. Taking quantum theories of closed and open systems as our case study, and considering three alternative notions of fundamentality: (i) ontic fundamentality, (ii) epistemic fundamentality, and (iii) explanatory fundamentality, we argue that the open systems view is fundamental, and that this has important implications for the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of science, and for metaphysics. (shrink)

The paper presents a historical-epistemological analysis of the notion of “spontaneous symmetry breaking”, which I believe today provides a template for conceiving the relationship between symmetry and asymmetry in physics as well as in other areas of the natural sciences. The central thesis of the paper is that spontaneous symmetry breaking represents an instance of “narrative knowing” in the sense developed by recent research in history and philosophy of science (Morgan and Wise (eds) SI narrative in science, Studies in history (...) and philosophy of science, 2017a). Spontaneous symmetry breaking is best understood as a hybrid narrative comprising formulas, verbal statements, images, and at times also other media. This flexible notion can be deployed in different variations, allowing to explain a broad range of non-symmetric phenomena or models as resulting from (not necessarily observable) processes of loss of symmetry. I will support this thesis by first analysing in detail the way in which spontaneous symmetry breaking, and in particular electroweak symmetry breakdown, are presented in today’s physics textbooks and reference works, and then by reconstructing the emergence of the hybrid construct from the late 1950s until the 1970s, when spontaneous symmetry breaking definitively established itself as a key physical notion. (shrink)

Two metascientific concepts that have been ― and still are ― object of philosophical analysis are the concepts of model and theory. But while the concept of scientific theory was one of the concepts to which philosophers of science devoted most attention during the 20th century, it is only in recent decades that the concept of scientific model has come to occupy a central position in philosophical reflection. However, it has done so in such a way that, at present, as (...) Jim Bogen states in the back cover of the book Scientific Models in the Philosophy of Science, by Daniela Bailer-Jones, “[t]he standard philosophical literature on the role of models in scientific reasoning is voluminous, disorganized, and confusing”. In spite of this, one of the axes that would allow us to organize at least part of this literature, and with which Bailer-Jones’ book closes, is that which is identified as one of the “contemporary philosophical issues: how theories and models relate to each other” (Bailer-Jones 2009, p. 208).That is why, in this introduction to the special issues of Metatheoria devoted to the topic of “Models and Theories in Biology”, we will present the main advances that have been made in the philosophical analysis of the concepts of model and theory in general and in biology in particular, and we will also do the same with the answers that have been given to the problem of "how theories and models relate to each other”. (shrink)

'Reason, Causation and Compatibility with the Phenomena' strives to give answers to the philosophical problem of the interplay between realism, explanation and experience. This book is a compilation of essays that recollect significant conceptions of rival terms such as determinism and freedom, reason and appearance, power and knowledge. This title discusses the progress made in epistemology and natural philosophy, especially the steps that led from the ancient theory of atomism to the modern quantum theory, and from mathematization to analytic philosophy. (...) Moreover, it provides possible gateways from modern deadlocks of theory either through approaches to consciousness or through historical critique of intellectual authorities. This work will be of interest to those either researching or studying in colleges and universities, especially in the departments of philosophy, history of science, philosophy of science, philosophy of physics and quantum mechanics, history of ideas and culture. Greek and Latin Literature students and instructors may also find this book to be both a fascinating and valuable point of reference. (shrink)

Teaching false theories goes against the general pedagogical and philosophical belief that we must only teach and learn what is true. In general, the goal of pedagogy is taken to be epistemic: to gain knowledge and avoid ignorance. In this article, I argue that for realists and antirealists alike, epistemological and pedagogical goals have to come apart. I argue that the falsity of a theory does not automatically make it unfit for being taught. There are several good reasons for teaching (...) false theories in school science. These are false theories can bring about genuine understanding of the world; teaching some false theories from the history of science that line up with children’s ideas can provide students “intellectual empathy” and also aid in better grasp of concepts; teaching false theories from the history of science can sharpen students’ understanding of the nature of science; scientists routinely use false theories and models in their practice and it is good sense for science education to mirror scientific practice; and learning about patently non-scientific and antiscientific ideas will prepare students to face and respond to them. In making arguments for the foregoing five points, I draw upon the work of a variety of philosophers and historians of science, cognitive scientists, science education scholars, and scientists. My goal here is not only to justify theories considered false already being taught, but also to actively endorse the teaching of some theories considered false that are by and large not currently taught. (shrink)

This book addresses key conceptual issues relating to the modern scientific and engineering use of computer simulations. It analyses a broad set of questions, from the nature of computer simulations to their epistemological power, including the many scientific, social and ethics implications of using computer simulations. The book is written in an easily accessible narrative, one that weaves together philosophical questions and scientific technicalities. It will thus appeal equally to all academic scientists, engineers, and researchers in industry interested in questions (...) related to the general practice of computer simulations. (shrink)

Scientific models are used to predict and understand the target phenomena in the reality. The kind of epistemic relationship between the model and the reality is always regarded by most of the philosophers as a representational one. I argue that, complementary to this representational role, some of the scientific models have a constructive role to play in altering and reconstructing the reality in a physical way. I hold that the idealized model assumptions and elements bestow the constructive force of a (...) model on the reality. By recognizing the physical constructive force of some scientific models, the merit of these models could be judged by how successful they are in the reality construction, rather than by the traditional criterion of model-world representation. (shrink)

Should cognitive scientists be any more embarrassed about their lack of a discipline-fixing definition of cognition than biologists are about their inability to define “life”? My answer is “no”. Philosophers seeking a unique “mark of the cognitive” or less onerous but nevertheless categorical characterizations of cognition are working at a level of analysis upon which hangs nothing that either cognitive scientists or philosophers of cognitive science should care about. In contrast, I advocate a pluralistic stance towards uses of the term (...) ‘cognition’ that eschews the urge to treat cognition as a metaphysically well-defined “natural” kind. (shrink)

This paper is an essay review of Steven French and Harmke Kamminga (eds.), Correspondence, Invariance and Heuristics. Essays in Honour of Heinz Post (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993). I distinguish a varity of correspondence relations between scientific theories (exemplified by cases from the book under review) and examine how one can make sense of the the prevailing continuity in scientific theorizing.

This eprint has been removed by the author's request.

Der Begriff ‘Modell’ leitet sich vom Lateinischen ‘modulus’ (das Maß) ab, im Italienischen existiert seit dem 16. Jh. ‘modello’ und R. Descartes verwendet im 17. Jh. ‘modèlle’. Während der Begriff in Architektur und Kunst schon seit der Renaissance gängig ist, wird er in den Naturwissenschaften erst im 19. Jh. verwendet.1 Dort greifen wissenschaftliche Modelle die für eine gegebene Problemstellung als wesentlich erachteten Charakteristika (Eigenschaften, Beziehungen, etc.) eines Untersuchungsgegenstandes heraus und machen diesen so einem Verständnis bzw. einer weiterführenden Untersuchung zugänglich. Es (...) ist üblich, zwischen Skalenmodellen, Analogmodellen und theoretischen Modellen zu unterscheiden. (shrink)

Toy models are highly idealized and extremely simple models. Although they are omnipresent across scientific disciplines, toy models are a surprisingly under-appreciated subject in the philosophy of science. The main philosophical puzzle regarding toy models concerns what the epistemic goal of toy modelling is. One promising proposal for answering this question is the claim that the epistemic goal of toy models is to provide individual scientists with understanding. The aim of this article is to precisely articulate and to defend this (...) claim. In particular, we will distinguish between autonomous and embedded toy models, and then argue that important examples of autonomous toy models are sometimes best interpreted to provide how-possibly understanding, while embedded toy models yield how-actually understanding, if certain conditions are satisfied. _1_ Introduction _2_ Embedded and Autonomous Toy Models _2.1_ Embedded toy models _2.2_ Autonomous toy models _2.3_ Qualification _3_ A Theory of Understanding for Toy Models _3.1_ Preliminaries and requirements _3.2_ The refined simple view _4_ Two Kinds of Understanding with Toy Models _4.1_ Embedded toy models and how-actually understanding _4.2_ Against a how-actually interpretation of all autonomous toy models _4.3_ The how-possibly interpretation of some autonomous toy models _5_ Conclusion. (shrink)

Scientific models consist of fictitious elements and assumptions. Various attempts have been made to answer the question of how a model, which is sometimes viewed as a fiction, can explain or predict the target phenomenon adequately. I examine two accounts of models-as-fictions which are aiming at disentangling the myth of representing the reality by fictional models. I argue that both views have their own weaknesses in spite of many virtues. I propose to re-evaluate the problems of representation from a novel (...) perspective in which some of the model representations can be regarded as fictional representations. I argue that this type of model representation is credible despite being a fictional representation of the reality. (shrink)

Empirical adequacy matters directly - as it does for antirealists - if we aim to get all or most of the observable facts right, or indirectly - as it does for realists - as a symptom that the claims we make about the theoretical facts are right. But why should getting the facts - either theoretical or empirical - right be required of an acceptable theory? Here we endorse two other jobs that good theories are expected to do: helping us (...) with a) understanding and b) managing the world. Both are of equal, often greater, importance than getting a swathe of facts right, and empirical adequacy fares badly in both. It is not needed for doing these jobs and in many cases it gets in the way of doing them efficiently. (shrink)

Toy models are highly idealized and extremely simple models. Although they are omnipresent across scientific disciplines, toy models are a surprisingly under-appreciated subject in the philosophy of science. The main philosophical puzzle regarding toy models is that it is an unsettled question what the epistemic goal of toy modeling is. One promising proposal for answering this question is the claim that the epistemic goal of toy models is to provide individual scientists with understanding. The aim of this paper is to (...) precisely articulate and to defend this claim. In particular, we will distinguish between autonomous and embedded toy models, and, then, argue that important examples of autonomous toy models are sometimes best interpreted to provide how-possibly understanding, while embedded toy models yield how-actually understanding, if certain conditions are satisfied. (shrink)

Effective field theories have been a very popular tool in quantum physics for almost two decades. And there are good reasons for this. I will argue that effective field theories share many of the advantages of both fundamental theories and phenomenological models, while avoiding their respective shortcomings. They are, for example, flexible enough to cover a wide range of phenomena, and concrete enough to provide a detailed story of the specific mechanisms at work at a given energy scale. So will (...) all of physics eventually converge on effective field theories? This paper argues that good scientific research can be characterised by a fruitful interaction between fundamental theories, phenomenological models and effective field theories. All of them have their appropriate functions in the research process, and all of them are indispensable. They complement each other and hang together in a coherent way which I shall characterise in some detail. To illustrate all this I will present a case study from nuclear and particle physics. The resulting view about scientific theorising is inherently pluralistic, and has implications for the debates about reductionism and scientific explanation. (shrink)

Quite rightly, philosophers of physics examine the theories of physics, theories like Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory, the Special and General Theories of Relativity, and Statistical Mechanics. Far fewer, however, examine how these theories are put to use; that is to say, little attention is paid to the practices of theoretical physicists. In the early 1950s David Bohm and David Pines published a sequence of four papers, collectively entitled, ‘A Collective Description of Electron Interaction.’ This essay uses that quartet as (...) a case study in theoretical practice. In Part One of the essay, each of the Bohm-Pines papers is summarized, and within each summary an overview is given, framing a more detailed account. In Part Two theoretical practice is broken into six elements: (a) the use of models, (b) the use of theory, (c) modes of description and narrative, (d) the use of approximations, (e) experiment and theory, (f) the varied steps employed in a deduction. The last element is the largest, drawing as it does from the earlier ones. Part Three enlarges on the concept of ‘theoretical practice,’ and briefly outlines the subsequent theoretical advances which rendered the practices of Bohm and Pines obsolete, if still respected. (shrink)

Wittgenstein famously ended his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein 1922) by writing: "Whereof one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence." (Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.) In that earliest work, Wittgenstein gives no clue about whether this aphorism applied to animal minds, or whether he would have included philosophical discussions about animal minds as among those displaying "the most fundamental confusions (of which the whole of philosophy is full)" (1922, TLP 3.324), but given his later writings on (...) language and thought, it seems a plausible hypothesis. Years later he wrote in the Philosophical Investigations (1968, p. 223) another aphoristic statement: "If a lion could speak, we would not understand him." (Wenn der Löwe sprechen könnte, wir könnten ihn nicht verstehen.) Decades of philosophical discussion about what Wittgenstein meant by these remarks illustrate another point: when philosophers speak, we do not fully understand them. (shrink)

Models are a principle instrument of modern science. They are built, applied, tested, compared, revised and interpreted in an expansive scientific literature. Throughout this paper, I will argue that models are also a valuable tool for the philosopher of science. In particular, I will discuss how the methodology of Bayesian Networks can elucidate two central problems in the philosophy of science. The first thesis I will explore is the variety-of-evidence thesis, which argues that the more varied the supporting evidence, the (...) greater the degree of confirmation for a given hypothesis. However, when investigated using Bayesian methodology, this thesis turns out not to be sacrosanct. In fact, under certain conditions, a hypothesis receives more confirmation from evidence that is obtained from one rather than more instruments, and from evidence that confirms one rather than more testable consequences of the hypothesis. The second challenge that I will investigate is scientific theory change. This application highlights a different virtue of modeling methodology. In particular, I will argue that Bayesian modeling illustrates how two seemingly unrelated aspects of theory change, namely the (Kuhnian) stability of (normal) science and the ability of anomalies to over turn that stability and lead to theory change, are in fact united by a single underlying principle, in this case, coherence. In the end, I will argue that these two examples bring out some metatheoretical reflections regarding the following questions: What are the differences between modeling in science and modeling in philosophy? What is the scope of the modeling method in philosophy? And what does this imply for our understanding of Bayesianism? (shrink)

Large scale experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider rely heavily on computer simulations, a fact that has recently caught philosophers’ attention. CSs obviously require appropriate modeling, and it is a common assumption among philosophers that the relevant models can be ordered into hierarchical structures. Focusing on LHC’s ATLAS experiment, we will establish three central results here: with some distinct modifications, individual components of ATLAS’ overall simulation infrastructure can be ordered into hierarchical structures. Hence, to a good degree of approximation, hierarchical (...) accounts remain valid at least as descriptive accounts of initial modeling steps. In order to perform the epistemic function Winsberg Model-based reasoning in scientific discovery. Kluwer Academic/plenum Publishers, New York, pp 255–269, 1999) assigns to models in simulation—generate knowledge through a sequence of skillful but non-deductive transformations—ATLAS’ simulation models have to be considered part of a network rather than a hierarchy, in turn making the associated simulation modeling messy rather than motley. Deriving knowledge-claims from this ‘mess’ requires two sources of justification: holistic validation :253–262, 2010; in Carrier M, Nordmann A Science in the context of application. Springer, Berlin, pp 115–130, 2011), and model coherence. As it turns out, the degree of model coherence sets HEP apart from other messy, simulation-intensive disciplines such as climate science, and the reasons for this are to be sought in the historical, empirical and theoretical foundations of the respective discipline. (shrink)

Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programmes centres around series of theories, with little regard to the role of models in theory construction. Modifying it to incorporate model-groups, clusters of developmental models that are intended to become new theories, provides a description of the model dynamics within the search for physics beyond the standard model. At the moment, there is no evidence for BSM physics, despite a concerted search effort especially focused around the standard model account of electroweak symmetry breaking. Using (...) the framework provided by Lakatosian research programmes, we can capture the way the periphery of a model-group changes as the available parameter space shrinks, while its central tenets remain untouched by unfavourable experimental findings. By way of motivation, I provide two case studies of model-groups that offer alternative mechanisms for electroweak symmetry breaking: supersymmetry and composite-Higgs models. Both of these model-groups are under pressure from the discovery of the Higgs boson, yet they have both been active research projects in the years after the Higgs discovery. However, a proper assessment of the progress of an ongoing research programme is impossible through a purely Lakatosian lens, so I propose replacing it with Laudan’s problem-solving account, which provides ongoing assessment, while offering normative guidance concerning the pursuit-worthiness of research programmes. My incorporation of model-groups into Lakatosian research programmes captures the developments of two attempts to expand our physical description of the world, and Laudan’s problem-solving rationality allows us to assess their pursuit-worthiness. (shrink)

Intertheoretic relations are an important topic in the philosophy of science. However, since their classical discussion by Ernest Nagel, such relations have mostly been restricted to relations between pairs of theories in the natural sciences. This paper presents a case study of a new type of intertheoretic relation that is inspired by Montague’s analysis of the linguistic syntax-semantics relation. The paper develops a simple model of this relation. To motivate the adoption of our new model, we show that this model (...) extends the scope of application of the Nagelian models and that it shares the epistemological advantages of the Nagelian model. The latter is achieved in a Bayesian framework. (shrink)

Most papers in theoretical economics contain thought experiments. They take the form of more informal bits of reasoning that precede the presentation of the formal, mathematical models these papers are known for. These thought experiments differ from the formal models in various ways. In particular, they do not invoke the same idealized assumptions about the rationality, knowledge, and preferences of agents. The presence of thought experiments in papers that present formal models, and the fact that they differ from the formal (...) models in this way, is often ignored in debates on what, if anything, we can learn from formal models in theoretical economics. I show that paying due attention to thought experiments in theoretical economics has serious implications for this debate. Differences between thought experiments and formal models are especially problematic for Robert Sugden’s “credible worlds” account. (shrink)

This paper analyses the practice of model-building “beyond the Standard Model” in contemporary high-energy physics and argues that its epistemic function can be grasped by regarding models as mediating between the phenomenology of the Standard Model and a number of “theoretical cores” of hybrid character, in which mathematical structures are combined with verbal narratives and analogies referring back to empirical results in other fields . Borrowing a metaphor from a physics research paper, model-building is likened to the search for a (...) Rosetta stone, whose significance does not lie in its immediate content, but rather in the chance it offers to glimpse at and manipulate the components of hybrid theoretical constructs. I shall argue that the rise of hybrid theoretical constructs was prompted by the increasing use of nonrigorous mathematical heuristics in high-energy physics. Support for my theses will be offered in form of a historical–philosophical analysis of the emergence and development of the theoretical core centring on the notion that the Higgs boson is a composite particle. I will follow the heterogeneous elements which would eventually come to form this core from their individual emergence in the 1960s and 1970s, through their collective life as a theoretical core from 1979 until the present day. (shrink)

How does mathematics apply to something non-mathematical? We distinguish between a general application problem and a special application problem. A critical examination of the answer that structural mapping accounts offer to the former problem leads us to identify a lacuna in these accounts: they have to presuppose that target systems are structured and yet leave this presupposition unexplained. We propose to fill this gap with an account that attributes structures to targets through structure generating descriptions. These descriptions are physical descriptions (...) and so there is no such thing as a solely mathematical account of a target system. (shrink)

How is scientific knowledge used, adapted, and extended in deriving phenomena and real-world systems? This paper aims at developing a general account of 'applying science' within the exemplar-based framework of Data-Oriented Processing (DOP), which is also known as Exemplar-Based Explanation (EBE). According to the exemplar-based paradigm, phenomena are explained not by deriving them all the way down from theoretical laws and boundary conditions but by modelling them on previously derived phenomena that function as exemplars. To accomplish this, DOP proposes to (...) maintain a corpus of derivation trees of previous phenomena together with a matching algorithm that combines subtrees from the corpus to derive new phenomena. By using a notion of derivational similarity, a new phenomenon can be modelled as closely as possible on previously explained phenomena. I will propose an instantiation of DOP which integrates theoretical and phenomenological modelling and which generalises over various disciplines, from fluid mechanics to language technology. I argue that DOP provides a solution for what I call Kuhn's problem and that it redresses Kitcher's account of explanation. (shrink)

This paper deals with the problem of derivational redundancy in scientific explanation, i.e. the problem that there can be extremely many different explanatory derivations for a natural phenomenon while students and experts mostly come up with one and the same derivation for a phenomenon (modulo the order of applying laws). Given this agreement among humans, we need to have a story of how to select from the space of possible derivations of a phenomenon the derivation that humans come up with. (...) In this paper we argue that the problem of derivational redundancy can be solved by a new notion of “shortest derivation”, by which we mean the derivation that can be constructed by the fewest (and therefore largest) partial derivations of previously derived phenomena that function as “exemplars”. We show how the exemplar-based framework known as “Data-Oriented Parsing” or “DOP” can be employed to select the shortest derivation in scientific explanation. DOP’s shortest derivation of a phenomenon maximizes what is called the “derivational similarity” between a phenomenon and a corpus of exemplars. A preliminary investigation with exemplars from classical and fluid mechanics shows that the shortest derivation closely corresponds to the derivations that humans construct. Our approach also proposes a concrete solution to Kuhn’s problem of how we know on which exemplar a phenomenon can be modeled. We argue that humans model a phenomenon on the exemplar that is derivationally most similar to the phenomenon, i.e. the exemplar from which the largest subtree(s) can be used to derive the phenomenon. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is no single universal conception of scientific explanation that is consistently employed throughout the whole domain of Higgs physics—ranging from the successful experimental search for a standard model Higgs particle and the hitherto unsuccessful searches for any particles beyond the standard model, to phenomenological model builders in the Higgs sector and theoretical physicists interested in how the core principles of quantum field theory apply to spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs mechanism. Yet the coexistence of (...) deductive-statistical, unificationist, model-based, and statistical-relevance explanations does not amount to a fragmentation of the discipline, but allows elementary particle physicists to simultaneously pursue a plurality of research strategies and keep the field together by joint convictions about the SM and shared explanatory ideals. These convictions include that the SM both represents a successful explanation of the available particle data and contains aspects in need of further explanation. Especially in the domain of BSM physics, explanatory ideals typically appear as stories motivating the different models and linking them to the whole of the discipline. (shrink)

This paper explores various functions of idealizations in quantum field theory. To this end it is important to first distinguish between different kinds of theories and models of or inspired by quantum field theory. Idealizations have pragmatic and cognitive functions. Analyzing a case-study from hadron physics, I demonstrate the virtues of studying highly idealized models for exploring the features of theories with an extremely rich structure such as quantum field theory and for gaining some understanding of the physical processes in (...) the system under consideration. (shrink)

I describe some interpretive strategies used by physicists in the development of quantum electrodynamics in the 1930s and 1940s, using Wimsatt's account of how to reason with false models as a guide. I call these “interpretive” strategies because they were used not just to derive empirical predictions, but also to derive information about the world besides the aforementioned predictions. These strategies were regarded as mathematically unrigorous, yet they were crucial to the development of a better theory of quantum electrodynamics. I (...) argue that these strategies are not easily assimilated into conventional axiomatic, deductivist views of what theories tell us about the world. Furthermore, it is unclear if these strategies are necessarily less reliable than strategies based solely on mathematically rigorous inferences. I suggest that these less than fully rigorous strategies are worth considering as general strategies for working with theories in physics. (shrink)

The paper studies the topography of the model landscape of the physics in the Higgs sector both within the Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics and beyond in the months before the discovery of a SM Higgs boson. At first glance, this landscape appears fragmented into a large number of different models and research communities. But it also clusters around certain guiding ideas, among them supersymmetry or dynamical symmetry breaking, in which representative and narrative features of the models are combined. (...) These models do not stand for themselves, waiting to be experimentally confirmed and elevated to the status of theory. Rather do they, quite in the sense advocated by Morgan and Morrison, enjoy a far-reaching autonomy. Typically models in the Higgs sector entertain three types of mediating relationships. First, they mediate between the SM and the data in those instances where the SM contains some uncertainty in the values of its basic parameters. Second, they mediate between BSM physics and the data by instantiating the core ideas behind these often speculative generalizations of the SM as stories—in Hartmann’s sense—that motivate or justify the respective model. Third, the fact that Higgs models within BSM physics reproduce the SM predictions in the low-energy limit functions as a consistency constraint that does not involve any additional autonomy. Due to the second type of mediating relationship, the representative features of Higgs models BSM are complex. (shrink)