Explanation in Physics: Explanation

1990 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Michael Redhead
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Physical Laws ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Rationality Of Science

In what sense do the sciences explain? Or do they merely describe what is going on without answering why-questions at all. But cannot description at an appropriate ‘level’ provide all that we can reasonably ask of an explanation? Well, what do we mean by explanation anyway? What, if anything, gets left out when we provide a so-called scientific explanation? Are there limits of explanation in general, and scientific explanation, in particular? What are the criteria for a good explanation? Is it possible to satisfy all the desiderata simultaneously? If not, which should we regard as paramount? What is the connection between explanation and prediction? What exactly is it that statistical explanations explain? These are some of the questions that have generated a very extensive literature in the philosophy of science. In attempting to answer them, definite views will have to be taken on related matters, such as physical laws, causality, reduction, and questions of evidence and confirmation, of theory and observation, realism versus antirealism, and the objectivity and rationality of science. I will state my own views on these matters, in the course of this essay. To argue for everything in detail and to do justice to all the alternative views, would fill a book, perhaps several books. I want to lead up fairly quickly to modern physics, and review the explanatory situation there in rather more detail.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Reutlinger ◽  
Juha Saatsi
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Covering Law

What is a scientific explanation? This has been a central question in philosophy of science at least since Hempel and Oppenheim’s pivotal attempt at an answer in 1948 (also known as the covering-law model of explanation; Hempel 1965: chapter 10). It is no surprise that this question has retained its place at the heart of contemporary philosophy of science, given that it is one of the sciences’ key aims to provide ...

scholarly journals Two Kindred Neo-Kantian Philosophies of Science: Pap’s The A Priori in Physical Theory and Cassirer’s Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Mormann
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Logical Empiricism ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Continental Tradition ◽  
Determinism And Indeterminism ◽  
Kantian Philosophy

Abstract The main thesis of this paper is that Pap’s The Functional A Priori in Physical Theory and Cassirer’s Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics may be conceived as two kindred accounts of a late Neo-Kantian philosophy of science. They elucidate and clarify each other mutually by elaborating conceptual possibilities and pointing out affinities of neo-Kantian ideas with other currents of 20th century’s philosophy of science, namely, pragmatism, conventionalism, and logical empiricism. Taking into account these facts, it seems not too far fetched to conjecture that under more favorable circumstances Pap could have served as a mediator between the “analytic” and “continental” tradition thereby overcoming the dogmatic dualism of these two philosophical currents that has characterized philosophy in the second half the 20th century.

Seneca's Scientific Fictions: Models as Fictions in theNatural Questions

2014 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 155-180
Author(s):  
Courtney Ann Roby
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Scientific Models ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Functional Mechanisms

AbstractSeneca'sNaturales Quaestionesexplains the causes and functional mechanisms of natural phenomena, from common sights like rainbows to exotically out-of-reach ones like comets. The vividness with which he brings them all within the reader's grasp is certainly a literary feat as much as a scientific one, but the rhetorical power of his explanations does not cost them their epistemological validity. Analyses drawn from current philosophy of science reveal elements of fictionality omnipresent in scientific models and experiments, suggesting an approach to Seneca's ‘scientific fictions’ not as failed analogies but as a sophisticated expansion of the tradition of analogical scientific explanation.

Symposium on Scientific Explanation in Political Science: Deduction, Explanation, and Social Scientific Inquiry

1969 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1233-1246
Author(s):  
John G. Gunnell
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Many

The purpose here is to explore certain aspects of the philosophy of science which have serious implications both for the practice of social and political science and for understanding that practice. The current relationship between social science and the philosophy of science (or the philosophy of the social sciences) is a curious one. Despite the emergence of a considerable body of literature in philosophy which is pertinent to the methodological problems of social science, there has been a lack of osteusive ties between the two areas. A justified concern with the independence of social scientific research has contributed to a tendency toward isolation which is unfortunate in view of the proliferation of philosophical problems which necessarily attends the rapid expansion of any empirical discipline. Although in the literature of contemporary social science there are frequent references to certain works in the philosophy of science and to philosophical issues relating to methodology, these are most often in the context of bald pronouncements and shibboleths relating to the nature of science, its goals, and the character of its reasoning. But what is most disturbing about the fact that social scientists have little direct and thorough acquaintance with the philosophy of science is not merely that there has been a failure to carefully examine the many logical and epistemological assumptions which are implicit in social scientific inquiry, since this task might normally and properly be considered to be within the province of the philospher of science.

The Idea of a Logic of Discovery

Dialogue ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norwood Russell Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Scientific Discovery ◽  
Logical Analysis ◽  
Individual Psychology ◽  
Logic Of Discovery ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
Logical Method ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
The Individual

Is there such a thing as a ‘Logic of Discovery’? Do we even have a consistent idea of such a thing? The approved answer to this seems to be “No.” Thus Popper argues (The Logic of Scientific Discovery) “The initial stage, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis nor to be susceptible of it.” (p. 31.) Again, “… there is no such thing as a logical method of having new ideas, or a logical reconstruction of this process.” (p. 32.) Reichenbach writes that philosophy of science “… cannot be concerned with [reasons for suggesting hypotheses], but only with [reasons for accepting hypotheses].” (Experience and Prediction, p. 382.) Braithwaite elaborates: “The solution of these historical problems involves the individual psychology of thinking and the sociology of thought. None of these questions are our business here.” (Scientific Explanation, pp. 20, 21.)

scholarly journals O Diálogo entre saberes a partir de filmes: contribuições para a ciência, sociedade e o ensino

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 380-400
Author(s):  
Fábio Gabriel Nascibem
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Science Society ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Popular Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Education And Society

Resumo: Verificamos que as discussões na sociedade têm tendido a extremos: há visões em que negam totalmente a primazia da explicação científica e, por outro lado, visões que centram toda validade na ciência. Defendemos uma que se estabeleça diálogo entre saberes. Levantamos algumas questões: Como pode ser abordado o tema do diálogo entre saberes? Quais potencialidades? Quais contribuições para o ensino e para a sociedade tais discussões podem trazer? Nosso objetivo neste artigo é esclarecer temas relacionados ao diálogo entre saber científico e saber popular à luz de teorias da filosofia da ciência a partir de duas obras cinematográficas. As obras que analisamos foram: o “Escolarizando o Mundo - O último fardo do homem branco” e o filme “1984”. Ambos fornecem subsídios para uma discussão madura do tema, com potencialidades para a sociedade, por meio de uma postura que privilegie diálogos, bem como para o Ensino de Ciências.Palavras-chave: Saber Científico. Saberes Populares. Obras Cinematográficas. The dialogue between knowledges from films: contribu-tions for science, society and educationAbstract: We note that discussions in society have tended to extremes: there are views that totally deny the prima-cy of scientific explanation and, on the other hand, views that focus all validity in science. We support a dialogue to be established between knowledge. We raise some questions: How can be addressed the issue of dialogue between knowledge? What potential? What contributions to education and society can such discussions bring? Our objective in this article is to clarify themes related to the dialogue between scien-tific knowledge and popular knowledge in the light of theories of the philosophy of science from two cinematographic works. The works we analyzed were: the “Schooling the World - The White Man’s Last Burden” and the film “1984”. Both provide subsidies for a mature discussion of the theme, with potential for society, through a posture that favors dialogues, as well as for Science Teaching.Keywords: Cinematographic Works. Scientific Knowledge. Popular Knowledge. 

Understanding

Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Grimm ◽  
Michael Hannon
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Science Understanding

Understanding is a kind of cognitive accomplishment, and the objects of understanding—from people, to languages, to scientific theories, to logical proofs—are strikingly varied. As this variety suggests, debates about the nature and value of understanding occur across philosophy. In the philosophy of science, understanding is typically taken to be one of the main goods at which scientific inquiry aims; it is therefore intimately related to issues concerning scientific explanation and to debates about what it is that makes scientific inquiry distinctive. In epistemology, the interest lies in characterizing what kind of cognitive accomplishment understanding is, exactly, and how (if at all) it differs from other cognitive accomplishments such as knowledge and wisdom. In the philosophy of language, a central concern is characterizing what is involved in understanding (or grasping) linguistic items like words, sentences, or languages as a whole; similar questions about what is involved in our understanding or grasp of concepts are crucial to the philosophy of mind. Debates in additional areas will be discussed in this article, but one overarching question is whether the sort of understanding we have of scientific theories, languages, people, and the like are similar in name alone or whether they share certain essential traits. For example, one common thought is that across all of these areas understanding involves the discernment of structure of some kind. It is also commonly thought that to achieve understanding this structure must not be discerned in just any old way, but that it must be “seen” or “grasped.” Just how to understand the metaphors of “seeing” and “grasping” has been a central issue in work on understanding across disciplines.

scholarly journals Complex rupture dynamics on an immature fault during the 2020 Mw 6.8 Elazığ earthquake, Turkey

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
František Gallovič ◽  
Jiří Zahradník ◽  
Vladimír Plicka ◽  
Efthimios Sokos ◽  
Christos Evangelidis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stress Transfer ◽  
Strong Motion ◽  
Large Earthquake ◽  
Earthquake Hazard ◽  
Earthquake Hazards ◽  
Earthquake Physics ◽  
Rupture Dynamics ◽  
Earthquake Hazard Assessment ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Physical Laws

Abstract Physical laws governing friction on shallow faults in the Earth and spatial heterogeneity of parameters are critical to our understanding of earthquake physics and the assessment of earthquake hazards. Here we use a laboratory-derived fault-friction law and high-quality strong-motion seismic recordings of the 2020 Elazığ earthquake, Turkey, to reveal the complex rupture dynamics. We discover an initial Mw 5.8 rupture stage and explain how cascading behavior of the event, involving at least three episodes, each of M > 6, caused it to evolve into a large earthquake, contrarily to other M5+ events on this part of the East Anatolian Fault. Although the dynamic stress transfer during the rupture did not overcome the strength of the uppermost ~5 kilometers, surface ruptures during future earthquakes cannot be ruled out. We foresee that future, routine dynamic inversions will improve understanding of earthquake rupture parameters, an essential component of modern, physics-based earthquake hazard assessment.

Some Remarks on the Logic of Explanation in the Social Sciences

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 64-81
Author(s):  
Albrecht Wellmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Practical Consequence ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

If one were to write a history of the philosophy of science in the spirit of T. S. Kuhn, one would have to consider the model of scientific explanation which Popper proposed and Hempel and Oppenheim developed to be one of the great paradigms of contemporary analytical philosophy of science. This analogue to the historically important paradigms of the individual sciences seems to me to be justifiable for the following reasons: first, the Hempel—Oppenheim model (or HO-model, as I shall call it) claims universal methodological validity; second, discussions on the problem of explanation have centred on this model for some time; third, the recent cognitive progress in this field has been largely the result of the interrelation between criticism of this model on the one hand and its improvement and explication on the other hand; and lastly, this model stands for a particular comprehension of the problems and possibilities of science, a concept of quite important practical consequence.

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