Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Duration: 2009 - 2012

Code: FFI2008-01580

Principal Investigator

José Antonio Díez (diez.ja@gmail.com)

All researchers

José Díez

David Pineda (U. Girona)

Jesús Zamora (UNED)

Antonio Diéguez (U. Málaga)

Ulises Moulines (U. München)

Roman Frigg (LSE)

Pablo Lorenzano (U. Quilmes)

Julian Reiss (U. Roterdam)

Summary

The objective of this project is to analyze the main models of explanation and representation, to test them with case studies from physics, biology, psychology and economics, and to propose and develop thew lines of research suggested by such and analysis.

Representing and explaining are the main cognitive scientific activities in science. Both practices are essentially relational: something, the explanans/representans, explains/represents something else, the explanandum/representatum. Philosophical analyses of such practices will be divided into two groups: functionalist and inherentist. According to the former explanation/representation is characterized by the function performed: the explanans/ representans X explains/represents the explanandum/representatum Y iff X has the function F (informing, inferring, unifying, …) relative to Y. According to the latter, these practices are characterized by means of certain relations between inner traits or constituents of the relata: the explanans/ representans X explains/represents the explanandum/representatum Y iff a relation R (similarity, morphism, necessitation, …) obtains between relevant inner components of X and Y (properties, constituents, structures, …).

The general goals are:

(a) to identify and clearly formulate the main inherentist and functionalist models,

 

(b) to critically analyze these models according to (b1) their explicatory power and (b2) their extensional adequacy when tested with case studies from physics, biology, psychology and economics,

 

(c) to determine whether explanation and representation allow for a unified treatment or they rather require a plurality of models,

 

(d) to develop adequate models of explanation and representation for the specific cases studied.

The general working hypothesis for this research is twofold. (i) Contrary to what the state of the art might suggest, explanation and representation are not independent activities. Although not every representation is explanatory, every explanation involves a form of representation, either of the explanandum or of a wider system including both explanans and explanandum. (ii) Radical functional models in which the inner constituents do not play any role do not have elucidatory power; such constituents are in virtue of which the representans/explanans performs its function in the representation/explanation and an adequate elucidation of both practices must make reference to them.

The testing of these hypotheses and the achievement of the above goals will allow for a better understanding of the cognitive core of scientific practice and thereby of some central problems in epistemology of science, both general and specific of the disciplines to which case studies belong.