Richard David-Rus

The aim of this paper is to argue that it is more plausible to approach understanding from a special type of model—the ABS/IBMs models—as a non-explanatory form following some suggestions advanced by Lipton. I will first look to the type of explanation that some authors claimed is disclosed by these models: Weisberg’s analysis of IBMs in ecology and Grüne-Yanoff’s analysis of the Anasazi model. I argue that their analyses fail to show that these models qualify as explanatory understandings. This brings us to Strevens’ “simple view,” which claims the existence of a correct explanation behind any understanding, and his strategy of dismissing the challenges posed by non-explanatory forms. I argue that this strategy incurs damaging costs on his view. In the last part we turn to Khalifa’s critique on Lipton’s proposals and argue that it is based on an unjustified construal of Lipton’s framework. I show how Khalifa’s “argumentative strategy” fails to establish the superiority of actual understanding over possible explanation.

Computational models have an increasing impact in social and historical sciences. In this paper, I will focus on a specific type of modelling developed in computational social sciences, an agent-based model. My inquiry will aim to identify the sort of explanatory virtues that such a model could have. I will discuss the suggested possibility of causal explanations but also the recent proposal advanced by Grüne-Yanoff that sees them as potential functional explanations. In the last part I shall make some suggestions on how to advance our inquiry. These will point to the need of a more consistent explanatory context drawing on the way social scientists make use of such models. The other will point to the need of considering a cognitive process that is closely related to the explanatory one - understanding.

Scientific understanding was a rather neglected topic in philosophy of science, despite its association with the well-known explanation subject. The classical position on explanation considered an approach on understanding to be redundant on one on explanation. Besides, the dominant view promoted by the unificationist approach on explanation conceived understanding as a “global affair”, as Friedman called it, of scientific knowledge. The recent developments in philosophy of science redirected the research to more local aspects of science and scientific inquiry. This new context calls for a reconsideration of the possibility of approaching understanding under different perspectives than the old one. I will try to identify some points of this reconsideration using as reference the frame of an influential tendency in today’s philosophy of science - the modelistic view.

Once a central topic of philosophy of science, scientific explanation attracted less attention in the last two decades. My aim in this paper is to argue for a newsort of approach towards scientific explanation. In a first step I propose a classification of different approaches through a set of dichotomic characteristics. Taken into account the tendencies in actual philosophy of science I see a local, dynamic and non-theory driven approach as a plausible one. Considering models as bearers of explanations will provide a proper frame for such an approach. In the second part I make some suggestions for a working agenda that will further articulate a sketchy account of explanation through models proposed by Hartmann and Frigg.