Multiple Realizability and Universality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8396271 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert W Batterman (0000-0002-7239-3128, University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2000 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 115-145 |
| Publication date | 2000-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/bjps/51.1.115 |
| OpenAlex | W2054074420 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 50 |
| References cited | 10 |
This paper concerns what Jerry Fodor calls a 'metaphysical mystery': How can there by macroregularities that are realized by wildly heterogeneous lower level mechanisms? But the answer to this question is not as mysterious as many, including Jaegwon Kim, Ned Block, and Jerry Fodor might think. The multiple realizability of the properties of the special sciences such as psychology is best understood as a kind of universality, where 'universality' is used in the technical sense one finds in the physics literature. It is argued that the same explanatory strategy used by physicists to provide understanding of universal behavior in physics can be used to explain how special science properties can be heterogeneously multiply realized.
Algorithm · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Physics · Quantum mechanics · Realizability · Theoretical physics · Universality (dynamical systems) · Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics · Mathematics · Origins and Evolution of Life · Philosophy · Quantum Mechanics and Applications
Can Psychology Be a Unified Science
Testing Multiple Realizability
Neurocognitive Mechanisms
Rules to Infinity
The Devil in the Details
Cognitive systems and the extended mind
Physical Emergence, Diachronic And Synchronic
Can Multiple Realisation be Explained
Stabilising understanding
Causal and Functional Explanations
Reductionism Revisited
Social Emergence
Hawking radiation and analogue experiments
Local reduction in physics
The infinite limit as an eliminable approximation for phase transitions
Market crashes as critical phenomena? Explanation, idealization, and universality in econophysics
Idealized models, holistic distortions, and universality
Explaining universality
Are causal facts really explanatorily emergent? Ladyman and Ross on higher-level causal facts and renormalization group explanation
Naturalizing biological agency
Cognitive dynamical models as minimal models
Explanatory autonomy
Model Transfer and Universal Patterns
Nonreductive Physics
What we cannot learn from analogue experiments
Reduction and emergence in the physical sciences
Explanations of exceptions in biology
Reduction, Autonomy, and Causal Exclusion Among Physical Properties
Renormalization group methods
Design principles as minimal models
Book Forum
Multiple Realization in Systems Biology
Universality Reduced
Is There A Monist Theory of Causal and Noncausal Explanations? The Counterfactual Theory of Scientific Explanation
On the Renormalization Group Explanation of Universality
Deidealization
Explanatory Depth
Constraints on Localization and Decomposition as Explanatory Strategies in the Biological Sciences
Minimal Model Explanations
Taking Reductionism to the Limit
Why Is There Universal Macrobehavior? Renormalization Group Explanation as Noncausal Explanation
Explanatory Depth in Primordial Cosmology
Consciousness and Reduction
Asymptotics, Reduction and Emergence
On the Universality of Hawking Radiation
Non-reductive Physicalism and Degrees of Freedom
Should Explanations Omit the Details
On the Explanatory Role of Mathematics in Empirical Science
Minimal Models and the Generalized Ontic Conception of Scientific Explanation
Explanation beyond causation? New directions in the philosophy of scientific explanation
| Unique citing works | 50 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,92 |
| Citation span | 2000 - 2025 (26) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 48 |