We Scholars

See here for a preprint of this new article, which will appear as part of the Synthese topical collection Explanatory and Heuristic Power of Mathematics, edited by Sorin Bangu, Emiliano Ippoliti and Marianna Antonutti.

Abstract: This paper illustrates how an experimental discovery can prompt the search for a theoretical explanation and also how obtaining such an explanation can provide heuristic benefits for further experimental discoveries. The case considered begins with the discovery of Poiseuille’s law for steady fluid flow through pipes. The law was originally supported by careful experiments, and was only later explained through a derivation from the more basic Navier-Stokes equations. However, this derivation employed a controversial boundary condition and also relied on a contentious approach to viscosity. By comparing two editions of Lamb’s famous Hydrodynamics textbook, I argue that explanatory considerations were central to Lamb’s claims about this sort of fluid flow. In addition, I argue that this treatment of Poiseuille’s law played a heuristic role in Reynolds’ treatment of turbulent flows, where Poiseuille’s law fails to apply.

See here for a preprint of this article, which is scheduled to appear in a Synthese special issue “All Things Reichenbach”, edited by Flavia Padovani and Erik Curiel.

Abstract: This paper considers how to best relate the competing accounts of scientific knowledge that Russell and Reichenbach proposed in the 1930s and 1940s. At the heart of their disagreements are two different accounts of how to best combine a theory of knowledge with scientific realism. Reichenbach argued that a broadly empiricist epistemology should be based on decisions. These decisions or “posits” informed Reichenbach’s defense of induction and a corresponding conception of what knowledge required. Russell maintained that a scientific realist must abandon empiricism in favor of knowledge of some non-demonstrative principles with a non-empirical basis. After identifying the best versions of realism offered by Reichenbach and Russell, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of the limitations of these two approaches.

See here for a preprint of my forthcoming article “A Defense of Truth as a Necessary Condition on Scientific Explanation”, Erkenntnis.

Abstract: How can a reflective scientist put forward an explanation using a model when they are aware that many of the assumptions used to specify that model are false? This paper addresses this challenge by making two substantial assumptions about explanatory practice. First, many of the propositions deployed in the course of explaining have a non-representational function. In particular, a proposition that a scientist uses and also believes to be false, i.e. an “idealization”, typically has some non-representational function in the practice, such as the interpretation of some model or the specification of the target of the explanation. Second, when an agent puts forward an explanation using a model, they usually aim to remain agnostic about various features of the phenomenon being explained. In this sense, explanations are intended to be autonomous from many of the more fundamental features of such systems. I support these two assumptions by showing how they allow one to address a number of recent concerns raised by Bokulich, Potochnik and Rice. In addition, these assumptions lead to a defense of the view that explanations are wholly true that improves on the accounts developed by Craver, Mäki and Strevens.

See here for a working draft of my paper, “Russell and Logical Empiricism”. This paper has been written for the Oxford Handbook to Bertrand Russell, edited by Kevin Klement. I aim to discuss how Russell’s own epistemology and metaphysics were shaped through his philosophical interactions with Schlick, Neurath, Carnap and Reichenbach.