Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T12:00:09.732Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mixed-Level Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mark Wilson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Explanations in physics commonly appeal to data drawn from different length or time scales, as when a “top-down” macroscopic constraint such as rigidity is used to evade the complexities one would confront in attempting to model the situation in a purely “bottom-up” fashion. Such techniques commonly embody rather complex shifts in explanatory strategy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 5 , December 2010 , pp. 933 - 946
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

This essay embodies a somewhat different range of considerations than I presented at the Pittsburgh PSA session (which was closer in content to my forthcoming “From the Bending of Beams to the Problem of Free Will,” which additionally surveys Leibniz's remarkable anticipations of our topics). I would like to thank all of the participants for their helpful counsel.

References

Batterman, Robert W. 2001. The Devil in the Details. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belot, Gordon. 2003. “Whose Devil? Which Details?” Philosophy of Science 72:128–53.Google Scholar
Bowden, F. P., and Tabor, D.. 1950. The Friction and Lubrication of Solids. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Frisch, Mathias. 2005. Inconsistency, Asymmetry, and Non-locality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stolarski, T. A. 1990. Tribology in Machine Design. Oxford: Industrial.Google Scholar
Wilson, Mark. 2009. “Determinism: The Mystery of the Missing Physics.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (1): 173–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar