Paul H.W. Disberg

Understanding is a generally acknowledged aim of science, but the way in which understanding is pursued and criteria for when it is achieved differ widely across scientific disciplines. This paper offers a comparative analysis of this disciplinary variation, aimed at revealing differences as well as commonalities in methods and criteria for achieving understanding. Starting point is the contextual theory of scientific understanding (De Regt 2017), which was developed to accommodate contextual variation in criteria for understanding. While this work focused on historical variation and used mainly case studies from the history of physics, the current paper applies the contextual theory to disciplinary variation. We present brief descriptive accounts of how understanding figures in nine scientific disciplines: mathematics, theoretical physics, astrophysics, chemistry, geoscience, biology, neuroscience, psychology, and the engineering sciences. Subsequently, we compare and evaluate these accounts in light of the contextual theory of scientific understanding.

Scientific articles, for instance in the field of astrophysics, are often filled with a variety of images. In philosophical studies, these images are usually analyzed in terms of their function within the scientific argument presented in the article. However, not all images that can be found in astrophysical articles are relevant to the scientific argument, which prompts the question of why they are included in the first place. Using the example of the so-called “Stellar Graveyard” plot, I argue that the work of Letitia Meynell provides a valuable description of this kind of imagery. That is, there are images used in astrophysical literature that may not be necessary for the scientific argument, but function as an aide for the visual imagination of the reader. These kinds of aides can help with mentally visualizing certain spatial configurations and the causal relationships within them, ultimately furthering understanding of the discussed astrophysical concepts or models.