Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

I propose a new deductive-nomological model for mathematical scientific explanation. In this regard, I will inflate Hempel’s deductive-nomological model with mathematics and test it against some recent paradigmatic examples of mathematical explanation of empirical phenomena: bridges of Königsberg, North American synchronized cicadas and Hénon-Heiles Hamiltonian systems. I will argue that mathematical scientific explanations that invoke laws of nature are qualitative explanations; and ordinary scientific explanations that employ mathematics are quantitative explanations. I will analyse the repercussions of this deductive-nomological model on mathematical indispensability arguments and causal/non-causal theories of explanation.