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Why Is There Universal Macrobehavior? Renormalization Group Explanation as Noncausal Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Alexander Reutlinger
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Abstract

Renormalization group (RG) methods are an established strategy to explain how it is possible that microscopically different systems exhibit virtually the same macrobehavior when undergoing phase transitions. I argue—in agreement with Robert Batterman—that RG explanations are noncausal explanations. However, Batterman misidentifies the reason that RG explanations are noncausal: it is not the case that an explanation is noncausal if it ignores causal details. I propose an alternative argument, according to which RG explanations are noncausal explanations because their explanatory power is due to the application of mathematical operations, which do not serve the purpose of representing causal relations.

Type
Complex Systems
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , December 2014 , pp. 1157 - 1170
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank, in particular, Robert Batterman, Laura Franklin-Hall, Andreas Hüttemann, James Ladyman, Marc Lange, John Norton, John T. Roberts, Michael Strevens, Jessica Wilson, all of the fellows at the Center for Philosophy of Science in Pittsburgh (during the academic year 2012/13), and an audience in Cologne for discussing earlier drafts of this paper. I am also grateful to Maria Kronfeldner for a stimulating and thought-provoking discussion on renormalization group explanations.

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