کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
5130381 1490319 2017 8 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
The directionality of distinctively mathematical explanations
ترجمه فارسی عنوان
جهت گیری توضیحات ریاضی مشخص
کلمات کلیدی
توضیح ریاضی متمایز؛ مفهوم مودال؛ مفهوم درونی
موضوعات مرتبط
علوم انسانی و اجتماعی علوم انسانی و هنر تاریخ
چکیده انگلیسی


- Lange argues by example that some explanations are distinctively mathematical.
- Mathematics fails to account for the directionality of these explanations.
- This directionality is readily explained in each case by ontic facts.
- Mathematics is part of, rather than opposed to, causal and mechanistic explanation.

In “What Makes a Scientific Explanation Distinctively Mathematical?” (2013b), Lange uses several compelling examples to argue that certain explanations for natural phenomena appeal primarily to mathematical, rather than natural, facts. In such explanations, the core explanatory facts are modally stronger than facts about causation, regularity, and other natural relations. We show that Lange's account of distinctively mathematical explanation is flawed in that it fails to account for the implicit directionality in each of his examples. This inadequacy is remediable in each case by appeal to ontic facts that account for why the explanation is acceptable in one direction and unacceptable in the other direction. The mathematics involved in these examples cannot play this crucial normative role. While Lange's examples fail to demonstrate the existence of distinctively mathematical explanations, they help to emphasize that many superficially natural scientific explanations rely for their explanatory force on relations of stronger-than-natural necessity. These are not opposing kinds of scientific explanations; they are different aspects of scientific explanation.

ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A - Volume 63, June 2017, Pages 31-38
نویسندگان
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