Scientific understanding and felicitous legitimate falsehoods

Lawler, Insa

doi:10.1007/s11229-019-02495-0

Cited by 30 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, we stopped short of offering a decisive argument against the possibility of (ii). Whether there are explanations that include idealizations stipulated by a model demands a closer look (for arguments against (ii), see, e.g., Lawler (2019); Rice (2019b)).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Model Explanation Versus Model-Induced Explanation

Lawler

Sullivan

2020

Found Sci

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Scientists appeal to models when explaining phenomena. Such explanations are often dubbed model explanations or model-based explanations (short: ME). But what are the precise conditions for ME? Are ME special explanations? In our paper, we first rebut two definitions of ME and specify a more promising one. Based on this analysis, we single out a related conception that is concerned with explanations that are induced from working with a model. We call them 'model-induced explanations' (MIE). Second, we study three paradigmatic cases of alleged ME. We argue that all of them are MIE, upon closer examination. Third, we argue that this undermines the building consensus that model explanations are special explanations that, e.g., challenge the factivity of explanation. Instead, it suggests that what is special about models in science is the epistemology behind how models induce explanations.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Without using the model, the explanation would have not been discovered. 16 So, the models play a crucial role in the process of obtaining the explanations (see also Lawler 2019). We focused above on Bokulich's proposal, but this conception of model explanation is visible throughout the literature.…”

Section: Model-induced Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Model Explanation Versus Model-Induced Explanation

Lawler

Sullivan

2020

Found Sci

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…9 One might worry whether UND T really is differentiated enough to account for the complex nature of understanding T . In particular, some authors have admitted that a subject can understand T a phenomenon P by using a highly idealized representation of P, but have argued that this requires the subject to believe certain aspects or parts of R (namely those parts that truly represent R) and to merely accept certain other aspects or parts of R (especially those parts that do not truly represent P) (e.g., see Greco 2014;Lawler 2019; or Rice 2019 for such a view). However, it is easy to fit this view into UND T in the following way: if R is an idealized representation of P, one can decompose it into two parts, R 1 and R 2 , where the former includes those parts of R that truly represent P, while the latter includes those parts of R that do not truly represent P; subject S then has an understanding T of phenomenon P iff (i) S has a suitable epistemic pro-attitude towards R 1 (e.g., S believes R 1 ) and S has a suitable epistemic pro-attitude towards R 2 (e.g., S…”

Section: The Notion Of Understanding In Contemporary Epistemology and Philosophy Of Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Tethered Understanding and Scientific Pluralism

Hauswald

2021

J Gen Philos Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

I examine situations in which we say that different subjects have ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ of a phenomenon. In order to make sense of such situations, we should turn our attention to an often neglected ambiguity in the word ‘understanding’. Whereas the notion of understanding that is typically discussed in philosophy is, to use Elgin’s terms, tethered to the facts, there is another notion of understanding that is not tethered in the same way. This latter notion is relevant because, typically, talk of two subjects having ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ of a phenomenon does not entail any commitment to the proposition that these subjects understand the phenomenon in the tethered sense of the word. This paper aims, first, to analyze the non-tethered notion of understanding, second, to clarify its relationship to the tethered notion, third, to explore what exactly goes on when ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ clash and, fourth, to discuss the significance of such situations in our epistemic practices. In particular, I argue for a version of scientific pluralism according to which such situations are important because they help scientific communities achieve their fundamental epistemic goals—most importantly, the goal of understanding the world in the tethered sense.

show abstract

“…In the case of genuine scientific understanding, Rice claims, what is extracted is true modal information about the system under investigation, i.e., true information about relationships of counterfactual dependence and independence among various observable and unobservable features of the system. Lawler (2019) opts for a similar strategy. She also reminds us that, in assessing the relation between understanding and truth, two questions must be distinguished and answered separately: how a certain falsehood relates to the phenomena; and how, and to what extent, this falsehood figures in the content of one's understanding of the phenomena.…”

Section: Understanding and The Factsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to the topical collection “True enough? Themes from Elgin”

Malfatti

2020

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This topical collection of Synthese is in honor of Catherine Z. Elgin. The idea for it arose in the context of an international book symposium dedicated to Elgin's latest book (True enough, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2017), organized by Katherine Dormandy, Christoph Jäger, and myself, which took place at the University of Innsbruck in March 2018. The topical collection comprises fourteen papers addressing a broad array of issues related to True Enough and to Elgin's work more generally, plus a contribution by Elgin with detailed comments and replies. True Enough is an extraordinarily rich, wide-ranging book; it reflects both the breadth and sharpness of Elgin's philosophical gaze and exemplifies the impressive variety of her philosophical interests. In this introduction, I give an overview of the topical collection's content, zooming in on the aspects of Elgin's work which captured the contributors' attention. My discussion will not remotely do justice to the complexity of Elgin's system, but I hope that it will help the reader navigate the topical collection and appreciate how the fourteen papers relate to Elgin's overall project. Keywords Catherine Z. Elgin • True enough • Understanding A change of perspectiveMature science is one of humanity's most stunning epistemic achievements. But what makes mature science epistemically excellent? Why is mature science a successful epistemic enterprise? In multiple papers over the last 3 decades (e.g.

show abstract

Scientific understanding and felicitous legitimate falsehoods

Cited by 30 publications

References 67 publications

Model Explanation Versus Model-Induced Explanation

Model Explanation Versus Model-Induced Explanation

Non-Tethered Understanding and Scientific Pluralism

Introduction to the topical collection “True enough? Themes from Elgin”

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About