Stabilising understanding

Frigg, Roman ORCID: 0000-0003-0812-0907 and Nguyen, James ORCID: 0000-0002-6919-1365 (2025) Stabilising understanding. Philosophical Studies. ISSN 0031-8116 (In Press)

Text (Understanding Paper - Final (LSERO)) - Accepted Version Pending embargo until 1 January 2100. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (693kB)

Abstract

We present an account of how idealised models provide scientific understanding that is based on the notion of stability: a model provides understanding of a target behaviour when both the model and the target’s perfect model are in a class of models over which that behaviour is stable. The class is characterised in terms of what we call the model’s noetic core, which contains the features that are indispensable to both the model’s and the target’s behaviour. The account is factivist because it insists that models must get those aspects of the target that it aims to understand right, but it disagrees with extant factivist accounts about how models achieve this.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Date Deposited:	22 Jul 2025 09:00
Last Modified:	29 Jul 2025 13:45
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/128907

Actions (login required)

View Item