UROP Openings
Have a UROP opening you would like to submit?
Please fill out the form.
Submit your UROP opening
Direct and Indirect Relevance in Scientific Explanation
Term:
Spring
Department:
24: Linguistics and Philosophy
Faculty Supervisor:
Brad Skow
Faculty email:
bskow@mit.edu
Apply by:
February 1, 2021
Contact:
Brad Skow: bskow@mit.edu
Project Description
This is a project about scientific explanation. First a definition: something cited in a scientific explanation is an "explanatory factor." For example, the dinosaurs went extinct because a comit hit the earth; so the comit's hitting the earth is an explanatory factor. The hypothesis to be investigated in this project is that some explanatory factors are "direct," and others, "indirect." An example illustrating this distinction might be this: the striking of a match, which is certainly part of why the match lit, is a "direct" factor, while the presence of oxygen in the room seems like an "indirect" factor: it is relevant to why the match lit in virtue of its making it possible for the striking to cause the match to light. To investigate this hypothesis we will look to see if this distinction ever appears "in the wild," that is, in scientific explanations in textbooks or academic research. This UROP is remote; meetings etc will all take place on zoom.
Pre-requisites
At least one philosophy class.