The Narrow Ontic Counterfactual Account of Distinctively Mathematical Explanation

Bibliographic Data

ID8398019
AuthorsMark Povich (0000-0001-8124-4311, Washington University in St. Louis, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume72
Issue2
Pages511-543
Publication date2021-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
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/axz008
OpenAlexW2918484336
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited42

An account of distinctively mathematical explanation (DME) should satisfy three desiderata: it should account for the modal import of some DMEs; it should distinguish uses of mathematics in explanation that are distinctively mathematical from those that are not (Baron [2016]); and it should also account for the directionality of DMEs (Craver and Povich [2017]). Baron’s ([forthcoming]) deductive-mathematical account, because it is modelled on the deductive-nomological account, is unlikely to satisfy these desiderata. I provide a counterfactual account of DME, the narrow ontic counterfactual account (NOCA), that can satisfy all three desiderata. NOCA appeals to ontic considerations to account for explanatory asymmetry and ground the relevant counterfactuals. NOCA provides a unification of the causal and the non-causal, the ontic and the modal, by identifying a common core that all explanations share and in virtue of which they are explanatory.

Causation · Counterfactual conditional · Counterfactual thinking · Determinism · Epigraph · Epistemology · Indeterminism · Mathematical economics · Ontic · Unification · Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms · Computer Science · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access