A lot of philosophical energy has been devoted recently in trying to determine if mathematics can contribute to our understanding of physical phenomena. Not many philosophers are interested, though, ...if the converse makes sense, i.e., if our cognitive interaction (scientific or otherwise) with the physical world can be helpful (in an explanatory or non-explanatory way) in our efforts to make sense of mathematical facts. My aim in this paper is to try to fill this important lacuna in the recent literature. My answer to the question of this paper is negative. As I will argue, there are serious problems with the main reasons for believing in the first place that it is possible to have physical understanding of mathematical facts.
Can mathematics contribute to our understanding of physical phenomena? One way to try to answer this question is by getting involved in the recent philosophical dispute about the existence of ...mathematical explanations of physical phenomena. If there is such a thing, given the relation between explanation and understanding, we can say that there is an affirmative answer to our question. But what if we do not agree that mathematics can play an explanatory role in science? Can we still consider that the above question can have an affirmative answer? My main aim here is to give an account that takes mathematics, in some of the cases discussed in the literature, as contributing to our understanding of physical phenomena despite not being explanatory.
¿Pueden las matemáticas contribuir a nuestra comprensión de los fenómenos físicos? Una forma de intentar responder a esta pregunta es implicándonos en la reciente disputa filosófica sobre la existencia de explicaciones matemáticas de los fenómenos físicos. Si existe tal cosa, dada la relación entre explicación y comprensión, podemos decir que hay una respuesta afirmativa a nuestra pregunta. Pero, ¿y si no estamos de acuerdo en que las matemáticas pueden desempeñar un papel explicativo en la ciencia? ¿Podemos considerar entonces que la pregunta anterior puede tener una respuesta afirmativa? Mi objetivo principal aquí es dar una explicación que considere que las matemáticas, en algunos de los casos discutidos en la literatura, contribuyen a nuestra comprensión de los fenómenos físicos a pesar de no ser explicativa.
What kind of cognitive state occupies the central stage in our interest in the phenomenon of climate change? What exactly is required to achieve this cognitive state? This paper addresses these ...questions from a purely conceptual footing by delving into the recent philosophical literature on the nature of understanding. As it will be argued, given the cognitive benefits associated with this state and the (mostly) practical concerns underpinning it in this context, understanding is what we are after, at a cognitive level, when we are interested in climate change. Knowing this is important because it can be used to further determine (in a purely conceptual way) what is required to achieve this cognitive state as well as who can achieve it. Much of the discussion in this paper is devoted to showing that understanding climate change is a highly demanding cognitive state that can be achieved to different degrees and that requires different things depending on what we take ‘climate’ and ‘climate change’ to mean. The most important implication of this discussion concerns the level of understanding of this phenomenon that is achievable by laypeople: even though gaining a basic degree of understanding of climate change isn’t above laypeople’s capacities, when it comes to making the connection between climate change and the kind of phenomena that can negatively impact our society (e.g., extreme weather events), laypeople cannot do better than to trust the scientists.
A way to argue that something (e.g. mathematics, idealizations, moral properties, etc.) plays an explanatory role in science is by linking explanatory relevance with importance in the context of an ...explanation. The idea is deceptively simple: a part of an explanation is an explanatorily relevant part of that explanation if removing it affects the explanation either by destroying it or by diminishing its explanatory power, i.e. an important part (one that if removed affects the explanation) is an explanatorily relevant part. This can be very useful in many ontological debates. My aim in this paper is twofold. First of all, I will try to assess how this view on explanatory relevance can affect the recent ontological debate in the philosophy of mathematics—as I will argue, contrary to how it may appear at first glance, it does not help very much the mathematical realists. Second of all, I will show that there are big problems with it.
Optimality models are widely used in different parts of biology. Two important questions that have been asked about such models are: are they explanatory and, if so, what type of explanations do they ...offer? My concern in this paper is with the approach of Rice (2012, 2015) and Irvine (2015), who claim that these models provide non-causal explanations. I argue that there are serious problems with this approach and with the accounts of explanation it is intended to justify. The idea behind this undertaking is to draw attention to an important issue associated with the recent pluralist stance on explanation: the rampant proliferation of theories of explanation. This proliferation supports a pluralist perspective on explanation, and pluralism encourages such a proliferation. But, if we are not careful about how we arrive at and how we justify new accounts of explanation — i.e., if we do not try to avoid the sort of problems discussed in this paper — we may end up trivializing the concept of explanation.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is one of the best-known global expert organizations. Its main objective is to supply policymakers with policy-relevant recent scientific ...information about climate change. The way in which the IPCC is obtaining this information is called an assessment. But assessments can be performed in a wide variety of ways. An important step, then, in understanding what this important organization does and why, is to figure out what characterizes the particular type of assessment it performs. The main objective of this paper is to contribute to the literature dedicated to understanding the work of IPCC by outlining the characteristics of the IPCC's assessment style and providing an in-depth analysis of the factors that have contributed to its development. As it will be argued here, understanding the climate-scientific-specific obstacles that had to be overcome by the IPCC in the process of pursuing its objectives is crucial for understanding why the IPCC is performing the type of assessment that it does and also for understanding some of the most important controversies associated with it.
What exactly do we need in order to enjoy the cognitive benefit that is supposed to be provided by an explanation? Some philosophers (most notably Khalifa in Philos Sci 79(1):15–37, 2012, Episteme ...10(1):1–17, 2013, Eur J Philos Sci 5(3):377–385, 2015, Understanding, explanation, and scientific knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017) would say that all that we need is to know the explanation. Others (e.g. Newman in Int Stud Philos Sci 26(1):1–26, 2012; Strevens in Stud Hist Philos Sci Part A 44(3):510–515, 2013) would say that achieving understanding with the help of an explanation requires more than that, that it requires a grasping or an understanding of the explanation. My aim in this paper is to come up with a new answer to this problem by exploring the shortcomings of the received view of understanding. In my view, besides having (at least) testimonial knowledge of an explanation, obtaining explanatory understanding requires full cognitive access to the explanation.
¿Pueden las matemáticas contribuir a nuestra comprensión de los fenómenos físicos? Una forma de intentar responder a esta pregunta es implicándonos en la reciente disputa filosófica sobre la ...existencia de explicaciones matemáticas de los fenómenos físicos. Si existe tal cosa, dada la relación entre explicación y comprensión, podemos decir que hay una respuesta afirmativa a nuestra pregunta. Pero, ¿y si no estamos de acuerdo en que las matemáticas pueden desempeñar un papel explicativo en la ciencia? ¿Podemos considerar entonces que la pregunta anterior puede tener una respuesta afirmativa? Mi objetivo principal aquí es dar una explicación que considere que las matemáticas, en algunos de los casos discutidos en la literatura, contribuyen a nuestra comprensión de los fenómenos físicos a pesar de no ser explicativa.
Can mathematics contribute to our understanding of physical phenomena? One way to try to answer this question is by getting involved in the recent philosophical dispute about the existence of mathematical explanations of physical phenomena. If there is such a thing, given the relation between explanation and understanding, we can say that there is an affirmative answer to our question. But what if we do not agree that mathematics can play an explanatory role in science? Can we still consider that the above question can have
an affirmative answer? My main aim here is to give an account that takes mathematics, in some of the cases discussed in the literature, as contributing to our understanding of physical phenomena despite not being explanatory.
Znanstvena praksa tip je društvene prakse i svako područje znanje uopćeno manifestira važnu društvenu dimenziju. No treba li se činjenica da znanstvena praksa nastaje suradničkim trudom članova ...društvene grupe biti povezati s proizvodima takve prakse? U ovom radu nastojim na to pitanje odgovoriti afirmativno. Moja će strategija biti argumentirati da cilj znanosti djelomično određen društveno-povijesnim uvjetima i da taj cilj, uključujući dostupno pozadinsko znanje, stoji iza metodologije odgovorne za empirijski adekvatne na-cilj orijentirane teorijske rezultate.
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