Wayne, Andrew (2026) Scientific explanation and disciplinary goals: the case for constrained contextualism. [Preprint]
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Abstract
This paper examines the role of context in scientific explanation. It develops an approach, constrained contextualism, wherein what makes an argument genuinely explanatory depends in part on how well it serves other scientific aims. Disciplinary communities prioritize diverse goals in addition to explanation, including prediction, intervention, representation, realism, and understanding. Communities working with the same scientific models and within the same theoretical framework may legitimately maintain different explanatory standards based on their alignment with other disciplinary goals. The paper examines and rejects three alternative approaches to contextualism: traditional accounts, which allow only a very narrow role for context in explanation (Woodward); theory-relative accounts, in which factors to relevant high-level theory are salient to explanation (Jansson, Lange and idealized model explanations); and extreme contextualism about explanation (van Fraassen). It responds to an argument from Potochnik that there is rarely if ever any such alignment between the aim of explanation and other scientific goals. Ultimately, constrained contextualism is able to defend reasonable normative standards for explanation while at the same time recognizing the considerable role contextual factors do and should play in explanatory practice.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Scientific explanation, contextualism, scientific goals, physics, idealization | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Explanation Specific Sciences > Physics |
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| Depositing User: | Andrew Wayne | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 29 May 2026 12:34 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 29 May 2026 12:34 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 29779 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Explanation Specific Sciences > Physics |
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| Date: | 2026 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/29779 |
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