Carl Craver: Ontic Basis of Network Explanation

Dr Carl Craver (Washington University in St. Louis)

Network models are increasingly used across the sciences to describe complex relations among a number of individual actors. Philosophers enamored of this modeling approach claim to find in it evidence for non-causal, distinctively mathematical, or non-decompositional explanations. Using examples from contemporary resting state fMRI research, I show that this philosophical work in general misunderstands what network models do, how they are applied to real systems, and, most generally, what a philosophical theory of explanation is supposed to accomplish. I will argue that stock examples of network explanations in the philosophical literature all show tell-tale signs of causal (or otherwise ontic) asymmetry. These examples point the way to a more accurate account of the distinction between mathematical and causal explanation (than offered by, e.g., Lange or Colyvan) and hopefully to a deeper appreciation of what the ontic conception of scientific explanation asserts and how it differs from epistemic and psychologicstic models.

Registration for this event will be opened on March 7, 2015.