Abstract
Michael Strevens’ kairetic account of scientific explanation is an important recent addition to the philosophy of scientific explanation. Amongst other things, he offers a relatively positive account of idealized explanation. Given that idealization is an important part of the practice of chemistry, his account should be of interest to the philosophers of chemistry. This contribution explores the relationship between explanation and idealizations in quantum chemistry. In spite of the virtues of Strevens’ causal account of scientific explanation, it nonetheless fails to adequately capture the nature and function of explanatory idealization in chemistry. Most importantly, Strevens’ account cannot address the idealization of causal difference-makers. While Strevens has good reasons to reject idealizations such as these, some of the most important developments in the modelling of reaction mechanisms in the last 50 years demonstrate that idealized models may well distort the causal story but nevertheless provide veridical explanations. I sketch the idea that orbital symmetry models of organic reactions explain by detaching difference-making from causal influence. The result is that symmetry is a non-causal difference-maker.
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Notes
- 1.
I focus on Strevens’ ideas concerning explanation in deterministic systems.
- 2.
For example, in order to explain why all normal ravens are naturally black, it is not enough to posit a mechanism described by a causal model that cites the relevant biochemical laws, and physiological and environmental conditions. To causally entail, and thus to explain the blackness of ravens, one must also cite the basing generalization “All normal ravens have P”, where P stands for the appropriate physiological properties (ibid, pp. 228–229). Basing generalizations can be physically contingent, physically necessary or perhaps metaphysically necessary, but one thing to note is that they need not be causal generalizations. Hence non-causal factors can play a role in the explanation, a theme I will reprise below. A basing pattern of phenomena corresponding to a basing generalization play an explanatory function in a manner like initial conditions in event explanation. A major difference between basing patterns and initial conditions is that since the former concern regularity explanation, they include not just actual but also counterfactual states of affairs (p. 235). For basing generalizations to play an explanatory function requires that they are subject to counterfactual constraints, the details of which I omit here (but see Strevens 2008 Sect. 7.3).
- 3.
See Fisher (2006).
- 4.
According to Strevens, individuating models that explain in the ontological sense must be carried out by attending to not only the setup but also to the “follow-through” – a deduction of the explanatory target from the setup, which “represents the way in which [the difference-makers] make a difference” (ibid, p. 319). By taking the follow-through into account one can individuate canonical and idealized models because the former “contains more objectively explanatory information than the idealized model” (ibid, p. 320).
- 5.
In other words, it does not mean that the value for the parameter makes no difference; it is just that whatever value it does take it will not make a difference to the occurrence of the explanatory target, or that the value must fall within a certain range (ibid, p. 320).
- 6.
This would require a defense of the ontological autonomy of chemistry. For an example of such a defense, see Lombardi and Lambarca (2005).
- 7.
Outside the context of an explanatory framework, Strevens argues that black box explanations do not causally entail their targets and are incohesive (multiply-realizable – realised by diverse causal mechanisms) (ibid, p. 153).
- 8.
For example, a thermally allowed cycloaddition is the 4 + 2 cycloaddition of ethene and butadiene, i.e. the Diels-Alder reaction. The corresponding selection rule is: m + n = 4q + 2, where m and n are numbers of pi-electrons, q is an integer 0, 1, 2… (Hoffmann and Woodward 1968, p. 827).
- 9.
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Fisher, G. (2015). Orbital Symmetry, Idealization, and the Kairetic Account of Scientific Explanation. In: Scerri, E., McIntyre, L. (eds) Philosophy of Chemistry. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 306. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9364-3_13
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