Reflections On Structuralism And Scientific Explanation

Scientific Explanation and Scientific Structuralism

In this paper we argue that quantum mechanics provides a genuine kind of structural explanations of quantum phenomena. Since structural explanations only rely on the formal properties of the theory, they have the advantage of being independent of interpretative questions. As such, they can be used to claim that, even in the current absence of one agreed-upon interpretation, quantum mechanics is...

Maximality vs. Extendability: Reflections on Structuralism and Set Theory∗

“The primitive view–surely that of Kant–was that whatever is trivial is obvious. We know that this is wrong; and I would put it that the nature of mathematical knowledge appears more deeply mysterious today than it ever did in earlier centuries – that one of the advances we have made in philosophy has been to come to an understanding of just ∗I am grateful to audiences at the Steinfest, Univers...

Awe and scientific explanation.

Past research has established a relationship between awe and explanatory frameworks, such as religion. We extend this work, showing (a) the effects of awe on a separate source of explanation: attitudes toward science, and (b) how the effects of awe on attitudes toward scientific explanations depend on individual differences in theism. Across 3 studies, we find consistent support that awe decrea...

Scientific Explanation

The three cardinal aims of science are prediction, control, and explanation; but the greatest of these is explanation. Also the most inscrutable: prediction aims at truth, and control at happiness, and insofar as we have some independent grasp of these notions, we can evaluate science’s strategies of prediction and control from the outside. Explanation, by contrast, aims at scientific understan...

Philosophy, Ontology, and Scientific Explanation