Dryden, Donald (Author)
I outline an interpretive framework for the study of the sciences based on mechanisms and models rather than law-governed regularities and law-based explanations, with historical, philosophical, and empirical components. Chapters 1 and 2 look at the history of mathematics and mechanistic explanation in the 16th and 17th centuries, which developed hand in hand and provided support for the idea that scientific knowledge is epitomized by laws of nature . I argue that a historical perspective on the intimate relationship between mathematics and mechanistic explanation has much to contribute to understanding recent developments in the biological sciences. Chapter 3 presents a philosophical framework for understanding mechanistic explanation in the sciences, based primarily on the work of William Bechtel. Mechanisms are systems consisting of parts that interact with one another to produce the outputs of the system under study; and an account of a mechanism identifies the components and the activities performed by each, the organization that enables these to produce the behavior we want to explain, and the context in which the mechanism carries out its activities. Chapter 4 presents a model-based account of scientific explanation, derived from the work of Ronald Giere, in which scientists are seen as constructing models that are similar to various aspects of the real world rather than discovering true universal generalizations, or laws of nature . In this account, the use of models to represent the world can only be understood within the context of scientific practice, in which interests and purposes, as well as empirical observations, play a role in determining what models are proposed, evaluated, and accepted. Chapter 5 compares a naturalistic, model-based account of scientific reasoning and judgment with more traditional accounts, in which the truth of laws of nature are warranted by the employment of universal principles of rationality, or categorical methodological rules, which can be justified a priori . Chapter 6 presents examples of the use of model-based explanations in the biological and psychological sciences. I conclude that an interpretive framework based on mechanisms and models provides a more adequate account of these examples than one based on laws of nature.
...MoreDescription “I outline an interpretive framework for the study of the sciences based on mechanisms and models rather than law-governed regularities and law-based explanations, with historical, philosophical, and empirical components.” (from the abstract) Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 68/04 (2007). Pub. no. AAT 3263247.
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