Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
conceived as fulfilling a cognitive explanatory function which goes beyond merely
raising awareness of some actual but non-difference-making property. In other
words, they are intended to be taken as making a difference to their explanatory
targets. The explanatory strategy appears to be one of
idealizing a difference
-
maker
. Idealized difference-makers are illegitimate in the kairetic account because
they would distort the causal facts and undermine the causal entailment of the
explanatory target.
So, there are idealizations in chemistry that either lie beyond the reach of the
kairetic account because they idealize difference-makers, or alternatively they
simply do not explain. Within the kairetic account, as an ontological conception
of explanation, the latter option would be the correct strategy and is also preferable
in virtue of the strong emphasis Strevens places on
depth
of scientific understanding
achieved through standalone explanations at the fundamental physical level.
13.5 Depth, Causal Ecumenism, and Modularization
The drive towards standalone explanations - cohesive explanations consisting of a
complete set of difference-makers (picked out by the kairetic procedure) that
causally entail the production of the explanatory target - is to provide depth to
our scientific understanding of nature. Strevens
favoured sense of depth resides
“in models that account for a phenomenon by picking out a causal structure that is at
the same time very abstract and very physical”; causal models that pick out facts
about causal influence at the fundamental physical level
and
are very abstract or
general (ibid, p. 137).
But not all models are deep along both the axis of physical depth and generality.
This “shallow” sense of depth concerns a kind of abstraction or generality achieved
by black-boxing. Black-boxes can stand in for a mechanism within what Strevens
call the explanatory framework. The explanatory framework is essentially a spec-
ification of the explanatory context, which includes causal factors one must assume
in order to provide an explanation. For example, to explain the cause of a fire one
must take it as given that oxygen is present. But the presence of oxygen is not taken
as a difference-maker and hence does not contribute to the causal entailment of the
explanatory target. Black boxes can stand in for a known mechanism in the
explanatory framework as a matter of mere convenience and lack explanatory
power because they are framework relative. Although they may causally entail
their targets in a particular explanatory context and so technically stand alone,
Strevens argues we should seek unqualified explanations excised of their con-
nection to a particular framework.
7
Only deep standalone explanations are
'
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).
