Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-mzp66 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T00:39:55.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Minimal Model Explanations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Robert W. Batterman  and
Collin C. Rice
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article discusses minimal model explanations, which we argue are distinct from various causal, mechanical, difference-making, and so on, strategies prominent in the philosophical literature. We contend that what accounts for the explanatory power of these models is not that they have certain features in common with real systems. Rather, the models are explanatory because of a story about why a class of systems will all display the same large-scale behavior because the details that distinguish them are irrelevant. This story explains patterns across extremely diverse systems and shows how minimal models can be used to understand real systems.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , July 2014 , pp. 349 - 376
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.)

References

Batterman, Robert W. 2000. “Multiple Realizability and Universality.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51:115–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batterman, Robert W. 2002a. “Asymptotics and the Role of Minimal Models.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53:21–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batterman, Robert W. 2002b. The Devil in the Details: Asymptotic Reasoning in Explanation, Reduction, and Emergence. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Batterman, Robert W. 2005. “Critical Phenomena and Breaking Drops: Infinite Idealizations in Physics.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 36:225–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batterman, Robert W. 2009. “Idealization and Modelling.” Synthese 169 (3): 427–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batterman, Robert W. 2010. “On the Explanatory Role of Mathematics in Empirical Science.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charnov, Eric L. 1982. The Theory of Sex Allocation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Craver, Carl F. 2006. “When Mechanistic Models Explain.” Synthese 153 (3): 355–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Humières, Dominique, and Lallemand, P.. 1986. “Lattice Gas Automata for Fluid Mechanics.” Physica A 140:326–35.Google Scholar
Elgin, Mehmet, and Sober, Elliott. 2002. “Cartwright on Explanation and Idealization.” Erkentniss 57:441–50.Google Scholar
Eshel, Ilan, and Feldman, Marcus W.. 2001. “Optimality and Evolutionary Stability under Short-Term and Long-Term Selection.” In Adaptationism and Optimality, ed. Orzack, Steven Hecht and Sober, Elliott, 161–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, Michael E. 1983. “Scaling, Universality and Renormalization Group Theory.” In Critical Phenomena, ed. Hahne, F. J. W.. Lecture Notes in Physics 186. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Fisher, Ronald A. 1930. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldenfeld, Nigel. 1992. Lectures on Phase Transitions and the Renormalization Group. Frontiers in Physics 85. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Goldenfeld, Nigel, and Kadanoff, Leo P.. 1999. “Simple Lessons from Complexity.” Science 284:87–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton, William D. 1967. “Extraordinary Sex Ratios.” Science 156 (3774): 477–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huneman, Philippe. 2010. “Topological Explanations and Robustness in Biological Sciences.” Synthese 177:213–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kadanoff, Leo P. 2000. Statistical Physics: Statics, Dynamics, and Renormalization. Singapore: World Scientific.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kadanoff, Leo P., McNamara, Guy R., and Zanetti, Gianluigi. 1989. “From Automata to Fluid Flow: Comparisons of Simulation and Theory.” Physical Review A 40 (8): 4527–41.Google ScholarPubMed
Kaplan, David M. 2011. “Explanation and Description in Computational Neuroscience.” Synthese 183:339–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, David M., and Craver, Carl F.. 2011. “The Explanatory Force of Dynamical and Mathematical Models in Neuroscience: A Mechanistic Perspective.” Philosophy of Science 78:601–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levins, Richard. 1966. “The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology.” American Scientist 54:421–31.Google Scholar
Maynard Smith, John. 1979. The Evolution of Sex. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pincock, Christopher. 2012. Mathematics and Scientific Representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potochnik, Angela. 2007. “Optimality Modeling and Explanatory Generality.” Philosophy of Science 74 (5): 680–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Collin. 2012. “Optimality Explanations: A Plea for an Alternative Approach.” Biology and Philosophy 27 (5): 685–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Collin 2013. “Moving beyond Causes: Optimality Models and Scientific Explanation.” Noûs. doi:10.1111/nous.12042.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rohwer, Yasha, and Rice, Collin. 2013. “Hypothetical Pattern Idealization and Explanatory Models.” Philosophy of Science 80:334–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. 1984. Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Seger, Jon, and Stubblefield, J. W.. 1996. “Optimization and Adaptation.” In Adaptation, ed. Rose, M. and Lauder, G. V., 93–123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott. 1983. “Equilibrium Explanation.” Philosophical Studies 43 (2): 201–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott 2000. The Philosophy of Biology. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Stephens, David W., and Krebs, John R.. 1986. Foraging Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Strevens, Michael. 2004. “The Causal and Unification Approaches to Explanation Unified-Causally.” Noûs 38 (1): 154–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strevens, Michael 2009. Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Weisberg, Michael. 2007. “Three Kinds of Idealization.” Journal of Philosophy 104 (12): 639–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisberg, Michael 2013. Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, Stuart A., Reece, S. E., and Sheldon, B. C.. 2002. “Sex Ratios.” Heredity 88:117–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodward, James F. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar