Idealizations and analogies

TL;DR

This paper explores the role of idealizations and analogies in explaining the universality of critical phenomena, contrasting it with other commonality strategies like the ideal gas and harmonic oscillator models, to clarify their explanatory significance.

Contribution

It clarifies the differences between the universality of critical phenomena and other models, emphasizing the unique role of analogies in their explanatory power.

Findings

Analogies underpin the explanatory success of critical phenomena

Universal explanations involve a specific combination of physical and formal analogies

Assessing differences with other models clarifies the role of idealizations in scientific explanation

Abstract

The "universality" of critical phenomena is much discussed in philosophy of scientific explanation, idealizations and philosophy of physics. Lange and Reutlinger recently opposed Batterman concerning the role of some deliberate distortions in unifying a large class of phenomena, regardless of microscopic constitution. They argue for an essential explanatory role for "commonalities" rather than that of idealizations. Building on Batterman's insight, this article aims to show that assessing the differences between the universality of critical phenomena and two paradigmatic cases of "commonality strategy" - the ideal gas model and the harmonic oscillator model-is necessary to avoid the objections raised by Lange and Reutlinger. Taking these universal explanations as benchmarks for critical phenomena reveals the importance of the different roles played by analogies underlying the use of the models. A special combination of physical and formal analogies allows one to explain the epistemic autonomy of the universality of critical phenomena through an explicative loop.