Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T05:31:09.077Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On (Some) Explanations in Physics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

James Owen Weatherall
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I offer an explanation of why inertial and gravitational mass are equal in Newtonian gravitation. I then argue that this is an example of a kind of explanation that is not captured by standard philosophical accounts of scientific explanation. Moreover, this form of explanation is particularly important, at least in physics, because demands for this kind of explanation are used to motivate and shape research into the next generation of physical theories. I suggest that explanations of the sort I describe reveal something important about one way in which physical theories may be related diachronically.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 421 - 447
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 am indebted to Kyle Stanford, Dave Baker, John Manchak, Erik Curiel, and David Malament for helpful remarks on earlier drafts of this article. Thank you, also, to the Southern California Philosophy of Physics group, in particular, Jeff Barrett, Craig Callender, and Tarun Menon, for a spirited and productive discussion of the material presented here. I am also grateful to participants in the University of California, Irvine, WIP seminar, especially Bennett McNulty, Sam Fletcher, and Cailin O'Connor, for their comments. Finally, this article benefited from the helpful remarks of two anonymous referees.

References

Batterman, Robert. 2002. The Devil in the Details. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cartan, Élie. 1923. “Sur les variétés á connexion affine, et la théorie de la relativité généralisée (premiére partie).” Annales Scientifiques de l’École Normale Supérieure 40:325–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartan, Élie. 1924. “Sur les variétés á connexion affine, et la théorie de la relativité généralisée (premiére partie) (suite).” Annales Scientifiques de l’École Normale Supérieure 41:1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehlers, Jürgen. 1981. “Über den Newtonschen Grenzwert der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie.” In Grundlagen Probleme der Modernen Physik, ed. Nitsch, Jürgen, Pfarr, Joachim, and Stachow, Ernst-Walther, 65–84. Zurich: Bibliographisches Institut.Google Scholar
Einstein, Albert. 1920. Relativity: The Special and General Theory. Ed. Robert W. Lawson. New York: Henry Holt & Co.Google Scholar
Fisher, Ronald Aylmer. 1930. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedrichs, Kurt O. 1927. “Eine Invariante Formulierun des Newtonschen Gravitationsgesetzes und der Grenzüberganges vom Einsteinschen zum Newtonschen Gesetz.” Mathematische Annalen 98:566–75.Google Scholar
Geroch, Robert. 1978. General Relativity from A to B. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2003. Theory and Reality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl, and Oppenheim, Paul. 1948. “Studies in the Logic of Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 15:135–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1989. “Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure of the World.” In Scientific Explanation, ed. Kitcher, Philip and Salmon, Wesley. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1977. “Concepts of Cause in the Development of Physics.” In The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Künzle, Hans-Peter. 1976. “Covariant Newtonian Limit of Lorentz Space-Times.” General Relativity and Gravitation 7 (5): 445–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malament, David. 1986. “Newtonian Gravity, Limits, and the Geometry of Space.” In From Quarks to Quasars, ed. Colodny, Robert, 181–201. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Malament, David. 2011. Topics in the Foundations of General Relativity and Newtonian Gravitation Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming, http://www.lps.uci.edu/malament/FndsofGR/GR.pdf.Google Scholar
Nagel, Ernest. 1961. The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Ernest. 1970. “Issues in the Logic of Reductive Explanations.” In Mind, Science, and History, ed. Kiefer, Howard E. and Munitz, Milton K., 117–37. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Nickles, Thomas. 1973. “Two Concepts of Intertheoretic Reduction.” Journal of Philosophy 70 (7): 181–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Odom, B., Hanneke, D., D’Urso, B., and Gabrielse, G.. 2006. “New Measurement of the Electron Magnetic Moment Using a One-Electron Quantum Cyclotron.” Physical Review Letters 97 (3): 030801.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sachs, Mendel. 1976. “On the Logical Status of Equivalence Principles in General Relativity Theory.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27 (3): 225–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, Wesley. 1984. Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley. 1989. “Four Decades of Scientific Explanation.” In Scientific Explanation, ed. Kitcher, Philip and Salmon, Wesley, 3–219. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Skyrms, Brian. 1996. Evolution of the Social Contract. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strevens, Michael. 2004. “The Causal and Unification Approaches to Explanation Unified—Causally.” Nous 38 (1): 154–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strevens, Michael. 2008. Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Trautman, Andrzej. 1965. “Foundations and Current Problems of General Relativity.” In Lectures on General Relativity, ed. Deser, Stanley and Ford, Kenneth W., 1–248. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Weinberg, Steven. 1972. Gravitation and Cosmology. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Woodward, James. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar