Mathematical explanation and indispensability
نویسندگان
چکیده
منابع مشابه
Indispensability Arguments and Mathematical Explanation in Science
The aim of this thesis is to find a way to undermine the indispensability argument for mathematical platonism. In chapter 1 I provide a brief survey of the indispensability argument, arguing that the explanatory indispensability argument is stronger than earlier forms of the argument. This is because it has less controversial premises, appealing neither to confirmational holism nor to a strong ...
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Some explanations in social science, psychology and biology belong to a higher level than other explanations. And higher explanations possess the virtue of abstracting away from the details of lower explanations, many philosophers argue. As a result, these higher explanations are irreplaceable. And this suggests that there are genuine higher laws or patterns involving social, psychological and ...
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Hawley, K. 2008. Persistence and determination. Philosophy 83 (Suppl 62), 197–212. Langford, S. 2007. How to defend the cohabitation theory. The Philosophical Quarterly 57: 212–24. Lewis, D. 1983. Postscripts to ‘Survival and identity’. Philosophical Papers Volume I: 73–77. McGrath, M. 2007. Four-dimensionalism and the puzzles of coincidence. In Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 3, ed. Dean Zimmerm...
متن کاملMathematical Explanation: Problems and Prospects
Since this issue is devoted to the interaction between philosophy of mathematics and mathematical practice, I would like to begin with an introductory reflection on this topic, before I enter the specifics of my contribution. In the past thirty years there has been a marked shift in philosophy of mathematics, due to the appearance of research on aspects of mathematics that were previously ignor...
متن کاملMathematical Explanation in Science
Does mathematics ever play an explanatory role in science? If so then this opens the way for scientific realists to argue for the existence of mathematical entities using inference to the best explanation. Elsewhere I have argued, using a case study involving the primenumbered life cycles of periodical cicadas, that there are examples of indispensable mathematical explanations of purely physica...
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ژورنال
عنوان ژورنال: THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science
سال: 2018
ISSN: 2171-679X,0495-4548
DOI: 10.1387/theoria.17615