Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T00:15:48.526Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explanation in Physics: Explanation in Physical Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Peter Clark
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The corpus of physical theory is a paradigm of knowledge. The evolution of modern physical theory constitutes the clearest exemplar of the growth of knowledge. If the development of physical theory does not constitute an example of progress and growth in what we know about the Universe nothing does. So anyone interested in the theory of knowledge must be interested consequently in the evolution and content of physical theory. Crucial to the conception of physics as a paradigm of knowledge is the way in which physical theory provides explanations of a vast diversity of natural phenomena on the basis of a very few fundamental principles. A central problem for the epistemologist is therefore what is theoretical explanation in physics? Here we can get good insight from what Redhead has said (this volume pp. 145–54). Indeed one could agree with almost everything Redhead says and simply endorse much of his careful and extensive defence of the covering law account of explanation in the physical sciences at least as an ideal. However I shall, I fear, try the reader's patience by extending some of the considerations he introduced and raising those issues where we disagree, especially in the important area of statistical explanation.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 27 , March 1990 , pp. 155 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beeson, M. J. 1985. Foundations of Constructive Mathematics (Berlin: Springer Verlag).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, M. 1978. ‘Topics in Nonlinear Dynamics’, American Institute of Physics, Conference Proceedings, Vol. 46.Google Scholar
Bishop, E. and Bridges, D. 1980. Constructive Analysis (Berlin: Springer Verlag).Google Scholar
Brush, S. J. 1976. The Kind of Motion We Call Heat, Vol. 1 (Amsterdam: North-Holland).Google Scholar
Burgess, J. 1984. ‘Dummett's Case for Intuitionism’, History and Philosophy of Logic 5: 177–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie (Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaitin, G. J. 1987. Algorithmic Information Theory, Cambridge Tracts in Theoretical Computer Science (Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Church, A. 1940. ‘On the Concept of a Random Sequence’, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 46: 130–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, P. 1987. ‘Determinism and Probability in Physics’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Vol. LXI 185–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, P. C. W. 1989. The New Physics (Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Dummett, M. A. E. 1959. ‘Truth’, in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LIX, reprinted in M. A. E. Dummet, Truth and Other Enigmas (London: Duckworth, 1978).Google Scholar
Dummett, M. A. E. 1973. ‘The Philosophical Basis of Intuitionistic Logic’, reprinted in Truth and Other Enigmas (London: Duckworth, 1978).Google Scholar
Earman, J. 1971. ‘Laplacian Determinism, or Is This Any Way to Run a Universe’, Journal of Philosophy 68: 729–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earman, J. 1986. A Primer on Determinism (Dordrecht: D. Reidel).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eberle, R., Kaplan, D. and Montague, R. 1961. ‘Hempel and Oppenheim on Explanation’, Philosophy of Science 28: 418–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, H. 1980. Science Without Numbers (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Ford, J. 1983. Physics Today 36 (4): 40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, J. 1989. ‘What is Chaos That We Should be Mindful of It?’ in Davies, 348–71.Google Scholar
Glymour, C. 1980. Theory and Evidence (Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Grünbaum, A. and Salmon, W. C. (eds), 1988. The Limitations of Deductivism (Berkeley: University of Carlifornia Press).Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. 1965. Aspects of Scientific Explanation (London: Free Press, MacMillan).Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. 1966. Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall).Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. 1988. ‘Provisos: A Problem Concerning the Inferential Function of Scientific Theories’ in Griinbaum and Salmon (1988), 19–36.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. and Oppenheim, P. 1948. ‘Studies in the Logic of Explanation’, Philosophy of Science 15: 135–75, reprinted in Hempel (1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howson, C. 1988. ‘On a Recent Argument for the Impossibility of a Statistical Explanation of Single Events, and a Defence of a Modified Form of Hempel's Theory of Statistical Explanation’, Erkenntnis 29: 113–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howson, C. and Urbach, P. 1989. Scientific Reasoning (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court).Google Scholar
Humphreys, P. W. 1978. ‘Is “Physical Randomness” Just Indeterminism in Disguise?’, PSA 1978, Vol. 2, 98–113.Google Scholar
Kreisel, G. 1982. Review Journal ofSymbolic Logic, 47: 900–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxwell, J. C. 1860. ‘Illustrations of the Dynamical Theory of Gases’, reprinted in The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, W. D. Niven (ed.), Vol. 1 (New York: Dover), 377–409.Google Scholar
Maxwell, J. C. 1866. ‘On the Dynamical Theory of Gases’, reprinted in The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, W. D. Niven (ed.), Vol. 2 (New York: Dover), 26–78.Google Scholar
Moise, E. E. 1973. Elementary Geometry from an Advanced Standpoint, 2nd edn (Palo Alto, C.A.: Addision-Wesley).Google Scholar
Montague, R. 1962. ‘Deterministic Theories’, reprinted in Formal Philosophy, Selected Papers of R. Montague, R. H. Thomason (ed.) (New Haven: Yale University Press), 303–59.Google Scholar
Nicolis, G. 1989. ‘Physics of Far from Equilibrium Systems and Self Organisation’, in Davies, 316–47.Google Scholar
Pitt, J. C. (ed.), 1988. Theories of Explanation (Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Popper, K. R. 1950. ‘Indeterminism in Quantum Physics and in Classical Physics’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1: 117–33 and 173–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pour-El, M. and Richards, I. 1979. ‘A Computable Ordinary Differential Equation Which Possesses No Computable Solution’, Annals of Mathematical Logic 17: 61–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pour-El, M. and Richards, I. 1981. ‘The Wave Equation with Computable Initial Data Such that its Unique Solution is Not Computable’, Advances in Mathematics 39: 215–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pour-El, M. and Richards, I. 1983. ‘Non-computability in Analysis and Physics’, Advances in Mathematics 48: 44–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. 1980. ‘Models and Reality’, Journal of Symbolic Logic 45: 646–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railton, P. 1978. ‘A Deductive-Nomological Model of Probabilistic Explanation’, Philosophy of Science 45: 206–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, B. 1917. ‘On the Notion of Cause’, reprinted in Mysticism and Logic (London: Allen and Unwin), 180–208.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. C. 1970. ‘Statistical Explanation’, in Salmon, W. C. (ed.) Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance (University of Pittsburg Press), 29–87.Google Scholar
Simpson, S. G. 1984. ‘Which Set Existence Axioms are Needed to Prove the Cauchy/Peano Theorem for Ordinary Differential Equations?’, Journal of Symbolic Logic 49: 783–802.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, S. G. 1988. ‘Partial Realisations of Hilbert's Program’, Journal of Symbolic Logic 53: 349–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trolestra, A. S. and van Dalen, D. 1988. Constructivism in Mathematics, Volume 1 (Amsterdam: North-Holland).Google Scholar
Ulam, S. H. and Von Neumann, J. 1947. ‘On Combination of Stochastic and Deterministic Processes’, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 53: 1120.Google Scholar
Von Mises, R. 1957. Probability, Statistics and Truth (New York: Dover).Google Scholar
Watkins, J. W. N. 1984. Science and Scepticism (Princeton University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, C. J. G. 1981. ‘Dummett and Revisionism’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 47–67.Google Scholar
Wright, C. J. G. 1985. ‘Skolem and the Skeptic’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Vol. LXI, 117–37.Google Scholar
Wright, C. J. G. 1986. Realism, Meaning and Truth (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wright, C. J. G. 1988. ‘Why Numbers Can Believably Be: A Reply to Hartry Field’, Revue Internationale De Philosophic 45: 425–73.Google Scholar