Moving Beyond Causes: Optimality Models and Scientific Explanation
Noûs 49 (3):589-615 (2015)
Abstract
A prominent approach to scientific explanation and modeling claims that for a model to provide an explanation it must accurately represent at least some of the actual causes in the event's causal history. In this paper, I argue that many optimality explanations present a serious challenge to this causal approach. I contend that many optimality models provide highly idealized equilibrium explanations that do not accurately represent the causes of their target system. Furthermore, in many contexts, it is in virtue of their independence of causes that optimality models are able to provide a better explanation than competing causal models. Consequently, our account of explanation and modeling must expand beyond the causal approach.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1111/nous.12042
My notes
Similar books and articles
Optimality modeling in a suboptimal world.Angela Potochnik - 2009 - Biology and Philosophy 24 (2):183-197.
Optimality modeling and explanatory generality.Angela Potochnik - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (5):680-691.
Optimal-design models and the strategy of model building in evolutionary biology.John Beatty - 1980 - Philosophy of Science 47 (4):532-561.
Explanatory independence and epistemic interdependence: A case study of the optimality approach.Angela Potochnik - 2010 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (1):213-233.
Understanding science: Why causes are not enough.Ruth Berger - 1998 - Philosophy of Science 65 (2):306-332.
Mental models and causal explanation: Judgements of probable cause and explanatory relevance.Denis J. Hilton - 1996 - Thinking and Reasoning 2 (4):273 – 308.
In Defense of a Causal Requirement on Explanation.Garrett Pendergraft - 2011 - In Phyllis McKay Illari Federica Russo (ed.), Causality in the Sciences. Oxford University Press. pp. 470.
Models of intentional explanation.Robrecht Vanderbeeken - 2004 - Philosophical Explorations 7 (3):233 – 246.
Wesley salmon's complementarity thesis: Causalism and unificationism reconciled?Henk W. de Regt - 2006 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 20 (2):129 – 147.
Analytics
Added to PP
2013-09-02
Downloads
170 (#75,758)
6 months
8 (#105,043)
2013-09-02
Downloads
170 (#75,758)
6 months
8 (#105,043)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Minimal Model Explanations.Robert W. Batterman & Collin C. Rice - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (3):349-376.
Are More Details Better? On the Norms of Completeness for Mechanistic Explanations.Carl F. Craver & David M. Kaplan - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (1):287-319.
First principles in the life sciences: the free-energy principle, organicism, and mechanism.Matteo Colombo & Cory Wright - 2021 - Synthese 198 (14):3463–3488.
Explanatory Abstractions.Lina Jansson & Juha Saatsi - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (3):817–844.
Abstract Explanations in Science.Christopher Pincock - 2014 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (4):857-882.
References found in this work
Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation.James Woodward - 2003 - Oxford University Press.
Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World.Wesley C. Salmon - 1984 - Princeton University Press.
Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World.Michael Weisberg - 2013 - Oxford University Press.
Thinking about mechanisms.Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden & Carl F. Craver - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (1):1-25.