0
Your cart

Your cart is empty

Books > Science & Mathematics > Mathematics > Philosophy of mathematics

Buy Now

Because Without Cause - Non-Causal Explanations in Science and Mathematics (Hardcover) Loot Price: R4,621
Discovery Miles 46 210
Because Without Cause - Non-Causal Explanations in Science and Mathematics (Hardcover): Marc Lange

Because Without Cause - Non-Causal Explanations in Science and Mathematics (Hardcover)

Marc Lange

Series: Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science

 (sign in to rate)
Loot Price R4,621 Discovery Miles 46 210 | Repayment Terms: R433 pm x 12*

Bookmark and Share

Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days

Not all scientific explanations work by describing causal connections between events or the world's overall causal structure. Some mathematical proofs explain why the theorems being proved hold. In this book, Marc Lange proposes philosophical accounts of many kinds of non-causal explanations in science and mathematics. These topics have been unjustly neglected in the philosophy of science and mathematics. One important kind of non-causal scientific explanation is termed explanation by constraint. These explanations work by providing information about what makes certain facts especially inevitable - more necessary than the ordinary laws of nature connecting causes to their effects. Facts explained in this way transcend the hurly-burly of cause and effect. Many physicists have regarded the laws of kinematics, the great conservation laws, the coordinate transformations, and the parallelogram of forces as having explanations by constraint. This book presents an original account of explanations by constraint, concentrating on a variety of examples from classical physics and special relativity. This book also offers original accounts of several other varieties of non-causal scientific explanation. Dimensional explanations work by showing how some law of nature arises merely from the dimensional relations among the quantities involved. Really statistical explanations include explanations that appeal to regression toward the mean and other canonical manifestations of chance. Lange provides an original account of what makes certain mathematical proofs but not others explain what they prove. Mathematical explanation connects to a host of other important mathematical ideas, including coincidences in mathematics, the significance of giving multiple proofs of the same result, and natural properties in mathematics. Introducing many examples drawn from actual science and mathematics, with extended discussions of examples from Lagrange, Desargues, Thomson, Sylvester, Maxwell, Rayleigh, Einstein, and Feynman, Because Without Cause's proposals and examples should set the agenda for future work on non-causal explanation.

General

Imprint: Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin: United States
Series: Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science
Release date: December 2016
Authors: Marc Lange (Chair of the Philosophy Department)
Dimensions: 240 x 182 x 40mm (L x W x T)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 512
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-026948-7
Categories: Books > Science & Mathematics > Mathematics > Philosophy of mathematics
Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Philosophy of science
Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology
Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology
Promotions
LSN: 0-19-026948-0
Barcode: 9780190269487

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!

You might also like..

Principia Mathematica
Russell Bertrand Russell Hardcover R1,316 Discovery Miles 13 160
Principia Mathematica
Russell Bertrand Russell Hardcover R1,358 Discovery Miles 13 580
Foundations without Foundationalism - A…
Stewart Shapiro Hardcover R5,547 Discovery Miles 55 470
The Maths That Made Us - how numbers…
Michael Brooks Paperback R315 R281 Discovery Miles 2 810
Blueprints - How Mathematics Shapes…
Marcus du Sautoy Paperback R440 R349 Discovery Miles 3 490
Logic, Proof and Computation
Mark Tarver Paperback R569 Discovery Miles 5 690
The Scientific Counter-Revolution - The…
Michael John Gorman Hardcover R3,627 Discovery Miles 36 270
Seven Eyes Open - A Study Of The…
Alexander James B. Connor Hardcover R986 Discovery Miles 9 860
Seven Eyes Open - A Study Of The…
Alexander J B Connor Hardcover R998 Discovery Miles 9 980
Quantum Theory Made Simple - Discover…
Theodore Giesselman Hardcover R630 Discovery Miles 6 300
Quantum Mechanics for Beginners…
Alexander Schlotterbeck Hardcover R796 R693 Discovery Miles 6 930
Quantum Theory Made Simple - Discover…
Theodore Giesselman Hardcover R680 Discovery Miles 6 800

See more

Partners