Equivalent explanations and mathematical realism

reply to "evidence, explanation, and enhanced indispensability"

Andrea Sereni

pp. 423-434

in: Daniele Molinini, Fabrice Pataut, Andrea Sereni (eds), Indispensability and explanation, Synthese 193 (2), 2016.

Abstract

The author of “Evidence, Explanation, Enhanced Indispensability” advances a criticism to the Enhanced Indispensability Argument and the use of Inference to the Best Explanation in order to draw ontological conclusions from mathematical explanations in science. His argument relies on the availability of equivalent though competing explanations, and a pluralist stance on explanation. I discuss whether pluralism emerges as a stable position, and focus here on two main points: whether cases of equivalent explanations have been actually offered, and which ontological consequences should follow from these.