Pessimistic induction and two fallacies

The Pessimistic Induction from falsity of past theories forms a perennial argument against scientific realism. This paper considers and rebuts two recent arguments—due to Lewis (2001) and Lange (2002)—to the conclusion that the Pessimistic Induction (in its best known form) is fallacious. It re-establishes the dignity of the Pessimistic Induction by calling to mind the basic objective of the argument, and hence restores the propriety of the realist program of responding to PMI by undermining one or another of its premises

Explanatory Abstractions

A number of philosophers have recently suggested that some abstract, plausibly non-causal and/or mathematical explanations explain in a way that is radically different from the way causal explanations explain. While causal explanations explain by providing information about causal dependence, some abstract explanations allegedly explain in a way tied to the independence of the explanandum from the micro-details or causal laws, for example. We oppose this recent trend to regard abstractions as explanatory in some sui generis way, and argue that a prominent account of causal explanation can be naturally extended to capture explanations that radically abstract away from micro-physical and causal-nomological details. To this end, we distinguish different senses in which an explanation can be more or less abstract, and analyse the connection between an explanation's abstractness and its causal power. According to our analysis, abstract explanations have much in common with counterfactual causal explanations

Dynamical Systems Theory and Explanatory Indispensability

I examine explanations’ realist commitments in relation to dynamical systems theory. First I rebut an ‘explanatory indispensability argument’ for mathematical realism from the explanatory power of phase spaces. Then I critically consider a possible way of strengthening the indispensability argument by reference to attractors in dynamical systems theory. The take-home message is that understanding of the modal character of explanations (in dynamical systems theory) can undermine Platonist arguments from explanatory indispensability

Realism and Explanatory Perspectives

The prospects and challenges of reconciling perspectivism and realism are the ongoing concerns of Chapter 4 by Juha Saatsi. Saatsi advocates a modest scientific realism, which he believes can address the challenges that scientific realism faces, such as those advanced by perspectival realists. Saatsi argues that the perspectival aspects of science are best assimilated into the realist view in what he calls “explanatory perspectives.” His explanatory perspectives are explicated with his favored account of explanation, the counterfactual-dependence account, which is grounded in real modal connections in the world

On Explanations from Geometry of Motion

This article examines explanations that turn on non-local geometrical facts about the space of possible configurations a system can occupy. I argue that it makes sense to contrast such explanations from geometry of motion with causal explanations. I also explore how my analysis of these explanations cuts across the distinction between kinematics and dynamics

A pluralist account of non-causal explanation in science and mathematics

Marc Lange: Because without cause: Non-causal explanation in science and mathematics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, xxii+489pp, $74.00 H

Scientific realism and underdetermination in quantum theory

This paper surveys the status of scientific realism in relation to quantum physics, focusing on the problem of underdetermination

Mathematics and Explanatory Generality: Nothing but Cognitive Salience

We demonstrate how real progress can be made in the debate surrounding the enhanced indispensability argument. Drawing on a counterfactual theory of explanation, well-motivated independently of the debate, we provide a novel analysis of ‘explanatory generality’ and how mathematics is involved in its procurement. On our analysis, mathematics’ sole explanatory contribution to the procurement of explanatory generality is to make counterfactual information about physical dependencies easier to grasp and reason with for creatures like us. This gives precise content to key intuitions traded in the debate, regarding mathematics’ procurement of explanatory generality, and adjudicates unambiguously in favour of the nominalist, at least as far as explanatory generality is concerned

Taking Reductionism to the Limit: How to Rebut the Antireductionist Argument from Infinite Limits

This article analyzes the antireductionist argument from renormalization group explanations of universality and shows how it can be rebutted if one assumes that the explanation in question is captured by the counterfactual dependence account of explanation

Replacing Recipe Realism

Many realist writings exemplify the spirit of ‘recipe realism’. Here I characterise recipe realism, challenge it, and propose replacing it with ‘exemplar realism’. This alternative understanding of realism is more piecemeal, robust, and better in tune with scientists’ own attitude towards their best theories, and thus to be preferred