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Physical Law and Mechanistic Explanation in the Hodgkin and Huxley Model of the Action Potential

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Carl F. Craver
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Abstract

Hodgkin and Huxley's model of the action potential is an apparent dream case of covering-law explanation in biology. The model includes laws of physics and chemistry that, coupled with details about antecedent and background conditions, can be used to derive features of the action potential. Hodgkin and Huxley insist that their model is not an explanation. This suggests either that subsuming a phenomenon under physical laws is insufficient to explain it or that Hodgkin and Huxley were wrong. I defend Hodgkin and Huxley against Weber's heteronomy thesis and argue that explanations are descriptions of mechanisms.

Type
Where Neuroscience Meets Physics: Laws, Explanation, and the Hodgkin-Huxley Model of the Action Potential
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 75 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2006 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Cristina Bicchieri and Jason Alexander , December 2008 , pp. 1022 - 1033
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Anna Alexandrova, Jim Bogen, Lindley Darden, Ken Schaffner, and Marcel Weber for comments and discussion.

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