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Mathematical Models — Are They Scientific Explanations?
A Contemporary Debate in Philosophy of Science
What is an explanation? To be more precise, what is a scientific explanation? A lot has been written about the matter and, as is the case of most philosophical problems, the question has so far remained more or less unsettled.
According to one contemporary and widely received view explanation is about tracking objective dependency relations. In other words, an explanation shows the things on which the thing to be explained depends on. I know that is a bit of a mouthful but it basically says that if X explains Y, then the Y depends on X. Explanation “illuminates” this relationship. This, of course, gives rise to question: what is the nature of this relationship? It is actually this question which more or less plagues the contemporary philosophical debate on explanation.
There are two widely shared views on this matter. According to the first, the relationship between that which explains and that which is being explained is causal. That is to say, if X explains Y, then an X is the cause of Y. Let us call this first view a causal view of explanation. In other words, according to the causal view explanation tracks mechanisms which is a structure of the world that has component parts that perform certain functions. Tracking…
