Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T13:55:51.139Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Representing and Explaining: The Eikonic Conception of Scientific Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Alisa Bokulich
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The ontic conception of explanation, according to which explanations are full-bodied things in the world, is fundamentally misguided. I argue instead for what I call the eikonic conception, according to which explanations are the product of an epistemic activity involving representations of the phenomena to be explained. What is explained in the first instance is a particular conceptualization of the explanandum phenomenon, contextualized within a given research program or explanatory project. I conclude that this eikonic conception has a number of benefits, including making better sense of scientific practice and allowing for the full range of normative constraints on explanation.

Type
Explanation
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 5 , December 2018 , pp. 793 - 805
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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.)

Footnotes

†

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Alexey Onufriev for many stimulating discussions about water modeling research. I am also grateful to audience members at various venues (including PSA16, Western University, Prague, University of Edinburgh, Cambridge University, and Durham University) for constructive feedback on earlier incarnations of this article. I am most indebted, however, to Wendy Parker, whose uncompromising standards and incisive insights, always delivered in a generous and constructive spirit, make her an ideal editor.

References

Batterman, Robert. 2013. “The Tyranny of Scales.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics, ed. Batterman, Robert, 255–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechtel, William. 2008. Mental Mechanisms: Philosophical Perspectives on Cognitive Neuroscience. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bechtel, William, and Abrahamsen, Adele. 2005. “Explanation: A Mechanistic Alternative.” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Sciences 36:421–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bokulich, Alisa. 2011. “How Scientific Models Can Explain.” Synthese 180 (1): 33–45..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bokulich, Alisa 2014. “How the Tiger Bush Got Its Stripes: ‘How Possibly’ vs. ‘How Actually’ Model Explanations.” Monist 97 (3): 323–40..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bokulich, Alisa 2016. “Fiction as a Vehicle for Truth: Moving beyond the Ontic Conception.” Monist 99 (3): 260–79..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bokulich, Alisa, and Oreskes, Naomi. 2017. “Models in the Geosciences.” In Handbook of Model-Based Science, ed. Magnani, L. and Bertolotti, T., 891–911. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl 2014. “The Ontic Account of Scientific Explanation.” In Explanation in the Special Sciences: The Case of Biology and History, ed. Kaiser, M., Scholz, O. R., Plenge, D., and Hüttemann, A.. Synthese Library 367. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Guillot, Betrand. 2002. “A Reappraisal of What We Have Learned during Three Decades of Computer Simulations on Water.” Journal of Molecular Liquids 101 (1–3): 219–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Illari, Phyllis K. 2013. “Mechanistic Explanation: Integrating the Ontic and Epistemic.” Erkenntnis 78:237–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Izadi, Saeed, Anandakrishnan, Ramu, and Onufriev, Alexey. 2014. “Building Water Models: A Different Approach.” Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 5:3863–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Longino, Helen. 2013. Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, Wesley. 1984. “Scientific Explanation: Three Basic Conceptions.” In PSA 1984: Proceedings of the 1984 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 2, ed. Peter D. Asquith and Philip Kitcher, 293–305. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley 1989. “Four Decades of Scientific Explanation.” In Scientific Explanation, ed. Kitcher, P. and Salmon, W., 3–219. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Sheredos, Benjamin. 2016. “Re-reconciling the Epistemic and Ontic Views of Explanation; or, Why the Ontic View Cannot Support Norms of Generality.” Erkenntnis 81:919–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strevens, Michael. 2008. Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 1980. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Cory. 2012. “Mechanistic Explanation without the Ontic Conception.” European Journal of Philosophy of Science 2:375–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Cory 2015. “The Ontic Conception of Scientific Explanation.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 54:20–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed