The Enhanced Indispensability Argument: Representational versus Explanatory Role of Mathematics in Science

2011 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juha Saatsi
Keyword(s):  
Indispensability Argument ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Enhanced Indispensability Argument

Explaining with Mathematics? From Cicadas to Symmetry

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Otávio Bueno ◽  
Steven French
Keyword(s):  
Physical Nature ◽  
Mathematical Formalism ◽  
Indispensability Argument ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Strong Motivation

The putative explanatory role of mathematics is further pursued in this chapter in the context of the so-called indispensability argument. Our conclusion here is that the possibility of mathematical entities acquiring some explanatory role is not well motivated, even within the framework of an account of explanation that might be sympathetic to such a role. We also consider the claim that certain scientific features have a hybrid mathematico-physical nature, again in the context of a specific example, namely that of spin, but we argue that the assertion of hybridity also lacks strong motivation and comes with associated metaphysical costs. Furthermore, such claims fail to fully grasp the details of the interrelationships between mathematical and physical structures in general and the distinction between the mathematical formalism and its interpretation in particular.

scholarly journals Mathematical explanation and indispensability

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Vineberg
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Mathematical Explanation ◽  
Indispensability Argument ◽  
Mathematical Realism ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Mathematical Objects ◽  
Scientific Explanations ◽  
Enhanced Indispensability Argument

This paper discusses Baker’s Enhanced Indispensability Argument (EIA) for mathematical realism on the basis of the indispensable role mathematics plays in scientific explanations of physical facts, along with various responses to it. I argue that there is an analogue of causal explanation for mathematics which, of several basic types of explanation, holds the most promise for use in the EIA. I consider a plausible case where mathematics plays an explanatory role in this sense, but argue that such use still does not support realism about mathematical objects.

In Defense of Perceptual Content

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Schellenberg
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Representational Content ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Relational Understanding ◽  
The Way

Chapter 5 takes a step back and traces the way in which excessive demands on the notion of perceptual content invite an austere relationalist account of perception. It argues that any account that acknowledges the role of discriminatory, selective capacities in perception must acknowledge that perceptual states have representational content. The chapter shows that on a relational understanding of perceptual content, the fundamental insights of austere relationalism do not compete with representationalism. Most objections to the thesis that perceptual experience has representational content apply only to austere representationalist accounts, that is, accounts on which perceptual relations to the environment play no explanatory role. By arguing that perceptual relations and perceptual content are mutually dependent the chapter shows how Fregean particularism can avoid the pitfalls of both austere representationalism and austere relationalism. With relationalists, Fregean particularism argues that perception is constitutively relational, but with representationalists it argues that it is constitutively representational.

The Explanatory Role of Existence Proofs

Ethics ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-186
Author(s):  
Alexander Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Existence Proofs

scholarly journals Why Do Sport Coaches Adopt a Controlling Coaching Style? The Role of an Evaluative Context and Psychological Need Frustration

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofie Morbée ◽  
Maarten Vansteenkiste ◽  
Nathalie Aelterman ◽  
Leen Haerens
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation ◽  
Self Determination Theory ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Psychological Need ◽  
Need Frustration ◽  
Sport Coaches ◽  
Moderating Role ◽  
Coaching Style

In this study, involving 585 youth sport coaches (Mage = 35.76), the authors investigated whether coaches who perceive their environment to be highly evaluative would report acting in a more controlling or pressuring way. In a subsample (n = 211, Mage = 38.14), they examined the explanatory role of coaches’ experiences of psychological need frustration in this relation. They also considered whether years of coaching experience would serve as a buffer against the adverse effects of an evaluative context. In line with the tenets of self-determination theory, results of structural equation modeling indicated that an evaluative context was related to the use of a more controlling coaching style, with experiences of need frustration accounting for this relation. Coaching experience did not play any moderating role, suggesting that even more experienced coaches are vulnerable to the harmful correlates of an evaluative sport context.

The Methodological Argument for Informational Teleosemantics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Neander
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Proper Function ◽  
Basic Form ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Proper Functioning ◽  
Processing Approach ◽  
Semantic Norms ◽  
Information Processing Approach

Teleosemantic theories are diverse, but they all endorse the claim that semantic norms, to do with correct and incorrect representation, derive in part at least from functional norms, to do with normal or proper functioning. Informational teleosemantics adds that semantic norms also derive from natural-factiveinformation. In this chapter, The author starts with the premise defended in chapter 3–– in explaining how bodies and brains operate, biologists use a notion of normal-proper function. To this the author adds that the same notion of function is used in explaining cognitive (including perceptual) capacities, and then argue that, given an information-processing approach, the norms of proper functioning are thus wedded to the aboutness of natural-factive information, so that a basic form of normative aboutness is posited. This elucidates the explanatory role of positing nonconceptual representations, establishes the scientific credentials of informational teleosemantics, and gives us good reason to try to solve its alleged problems. In the last few sections, the author argues that the main naturalistic “alternatives” to teleosemantics also have apparently ineliminableteleosemantic commitments.

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