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Zusatztext Marc Lange provides an elaborate philosophical analysis of non-causal explanations in the (natural) sciences and in pure mathematics...This is an original and thought-provoking contribution to the current debate on non-causal explanations in philosophy of science and philosophy of mathematics...Lange's work -- including this book and a number of papers -- is one of the driving forces and highly original voices in the debate...Lange's book is an excellent, creative and thought-provoking scholarly contribution to the current debate on explanation. In particular, I believe it is likely the book will have a stimulating and fruitful effect on the literature. Informationen zum Autor Marc Lange is a philosopher of science. He serves as Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is the Theda Perdue Distinguished Professor. His previous books include Laws and Lawmakers (OUP 2009), An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics: Locality, Fields, Energy, and Mass (2002), and Natural Laws in Scientific Practice (OUP 2000). Klappentext Not all scientific explanations work by describing causal connections between events or the world's overall causal structure. In addition, mathematicians regard some proofs as explaining why the theorems being proved do in fact hold. This book proposes new philosophical accounts of many kinds of non-causal explanations in science and mathematics. Zusammenfassung Not all scientific explanations work by describing causal connections between events or the world's overall causal structure. In addition, mathematicians regard some proofs as explaining why the theorems being proved do in fact hold. This book proposes new philosophical accounts of many kinds of non-causal explanations in science and mathematics. Inhaltsverzeichnis Table of Contents 0. Preface 0.1 Welcome 0.2 What this book is not about 0.3 Coming attractions Part 1: Scientific Explanations by Constraint 1. What Makes a Scientific Explanation Distinctively Mathematical? 1.1 Distinctively mathematical explanations in science as non-causal scientific explanations 1.2 Are distinctively mathematical explanations set apart by their failure to cite causes? 1.3 Mathematical explanations do not exploit causal powers 1.4 How these distinctively mathematical explanations work 1.5 Elaborating my account of distinctively mathematical explanations 1.6 Conclusion 2. "There Sweep Great General Principles Which All The Laws Seem To Follow" 2.1 The task: to unpack the title of this chapter 2.2 Constraints versus coincidences 2.3 Hybrid explanations 2.4 Other possible kinds of constraints besides conservation laws 2.5 Constraints as modally more exalted than the force laws they constrain 2.6 My account of the difference between constraints and coincidences 2.7 Accounts that rule out explanations by constraint 3. The Lorentz Transformations and the Structure of Explanations by Constraint 3.1 Transformation laws as constraints or coincidences 3.2 The Lorentz transformations given an explanation by constraint 3.3 Principle versus constructive theories 3.4 How this non-causal explanation comes in handy 3.5 How explanations by constraint work 3.6 Supplying information about the source of a constraint's necessity 3.7 What makes a constraint "explanatorily fundamental"? Appendix: A purely kinematical derivation of the Lorentz transformations 4. The Parallelogram of Forces and the Autonomy of Statics 4.1 A forgotten controversy in the foundations of classical physics 4.2 The dynamical explanation of the parallelogram of forces 4.3 Duchayla's statical explanation 4.4 Poisson's statical explanation 4.5 Statical explanation under some familiar accounts of natural law 4.6 My account of what is at stake Part 2: Two Other Vari...
