Abstract
Physical reality as an explanatory model is an abstraction of the mind. Every perceptual system is a user interface, like the dashboard of an aeroplane or the desktop of a computer. We do not see or otherwise perceive reality but only interface with reality. The user interface concept is a starting point for a critical dialogue with those epistemic theories that present themselves as veridical and take explanatory abstractions as ontological primitives. At the heart of any scientific model are assumptions about which things exist, how they are related, and how we can know them. Scientific models take our knowledge beyond ordinary experience toward explanatory abstractions. The main problem with veridical models lies in why we cannot express our theories and the explanatory abstractions associated with them other than through classical perceptual interface symbols. This study analyses the limits, possibilities and constraints of explanatory abstractions.
Funding source: Trnava University in Trnava
Award Identifier / Grant number: VEGA 1/0174/21
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Research funding: This work was supported by – Trnava University in Trnava, Grant numbers – VEGA 1/0174/21.
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Competing interests: Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Original Papers
- Math can’t Move Matter
- Sparks of New Metaphysics and the Limits of Explanatory Abstractions
- Implication as Inclusion and the Causal Asymmetry
- Dualism, the Causal Closure of the Physical, and Philip Goff’s Case for Panpsychism
- Power, Capacity, Disposition and Categorical Properties: A Roughly Aristotelian Proposal
- Anti-Criterialism Does Not Result in an Unacceptable Consequence
- Truthmaking. Are Facts Still Really Indispensable?
- Discussing the Formal Components of Material Objects: A New Reply to Bennett
- Easy Ontology and Undecidable Sentences
- The Metaphysical Foundations of the Principle of Indifference
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Original Papers
- Math can’t Move Matter
- Sparks of New Metaphysics and the Limits of Explanatory Abstractions
- Implication as Inclusion and the Causal Asymmetry
- Dualism, the Causal Closure of the Physical, and Philip Goff’s Case for Panpsychism
- Power, Capacity, Disposition and Categorical Properties: A Roughly Aristotelian Proposal
- Anti-Criterialism Does Not Result in an Unacceptable Consequence
- Truthmaking. Are Facts Still Really Indispensable?
- Discussing the Formal Components of Material Objects: A New Reply to Bennett
- Easy Ontology and Undecidable Sentences
- The Metaphysical Foundations of the Principle of Indifference