Historical Explanations in Modern Physics? The Lesson of Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

Standard models of explanation in the philosophy of science seek to reduce explanation to relationships between different classes of statements or theories. But by so doing they thereby neglect their historical dimensions. In physics, for example, there are some ‘closed’ theories (classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, quantum electrodynamics, and others) in which all calculations can be performed without any reference to the process by which the theories were created. The success of this practice, with such theories as these, seems to have been taken as good reason for ignoring the historical dimension generally, where models of explanation are concerned. As a consequence, for many philosophers of science the discoveries of physicists have no history — the results of their research are determined by nature alone.