What Makes a Scientific Explanation Distinctively Mathematical

Bibliographic Data

ID8397495
AuthorsMarc Lange (0000-0002-0704-7376, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume64
Issue3
Pages485-511
Publication date2013-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/bjps/axs012
OpenAlexW2126595017
LanguageEN
Citations received95
References cited23

Certain scientific explanations of physical facts have recently been characterized as distinctively mathematical–that is, as mathematical in a different way from ordinary explanations that employ mathematics. This article identifies what it is that makes some scientific explanations distinctively mathematical and how such explanations work. These explanations are non-causal, but this does not mean that they fail to cite the explanandum’s causes, that they abstract away from detailed causal histories, or that they cite no natural laws. Rather, in these explanations, the facts doing the explaining are modally stronger than ordinary causal laws (since they concern the framework of any possible causal relation) or are understood in the why question’s context to be constitutive of the physical arrangement at issue. A distinctively mathematical explanation works by showing the explanandum to be more necessary (given the physical arrangement in question) than ordinary causal laws could render it. Distinctively mathematical explanations thus supply a kind of understanding that causal explanations cannot. 1 Introduction 2 Some Distinctively Mathematical Scientific Explanations 3 Are Distinctively Mathematical Explanations Set Apart by their Failure to Cite Causes? 4 Distinctively Mathematical Explanations do not Exploit Causal Powers 5 How these Distinctively Mathematical Explanations Work 6 Conclusion

Causality (physics) · Context (archaeology) · Epistemology · Mathematical practice · Mathematical structure · Mathematics education · Natural (archaeology) · Physical law · Physics · Set (abstract data type) · Biomedical Text Mining and Ontologies · Computer Science · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Science and Climate Studies