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Expanding the Scope of Explanatory Idealization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Andrew Wayne
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Abstract

Many explanations in physics rely on idealized models of physical systems. These explanations fail to satisfy the conditions of standard accounts of explanation. Recently, some philosophers have claimed that idealizations can be used to underwrite explanation nonetheless but only when they are what have variously been called representational, Galilean, controllable, or harmless idealizations. This article argues that such a half-measure is untenable and that idealizations not of this sort can have explanatory capacities.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 830 - 841
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I am grateful to Bob Batterman, Nic Fillion, Eric Poisson, Wayne Myrvold, and audiences at the PSA 2010, the 2010 Canadian Philosophical Association meeting, and the Perimeter Institute for helpful comments.

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