It is widely acknowledged that a central aim of science is to achieve understanding of the world around us, and that possessing such understanding is highly important in our present-day society. But what does it mean to achieve this understanding? What precisely is scientific understanding? These are philosophical questions that have not yet received satisfactory answers. While there has been an ongoing debate about the nature of scientific explanation since Carl Hempel advanced his covering-law model in 1948, the related notion of understanding has been largely neglected, because most philosophers regarded understanding as merely a subjective by-product of objective explanations. By contrast, this book puts scientific understanding center stage. It is primarily a philosophical study, but also contains detailed historical case studies of scientific practice. In contrast to most existing studies in this area, it takes into account scientists' views and analyzes their role in scientific debate and development. The aim of Understanding Scientific Understanding is to develop and defend a philosophical theory of scientific understanding that can describe and explain the historical variation of criteria for understanding actually employed by scientists. The theory does justice to the insights of such famous physicists as Werner Heisenberg and Richard Feynman, while bringing much-needed conceptual rigor to their intuitions. The scope of the proposed account of understanding is the natural sciences: while the detailed case studies derive from physics, examples from other sciences are presented to illustrate its wider validity.

About the Author
Henk W. de Regt is Professor of Philosophy of Natural Sciences at the Instititute for Science in Society, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Reviews
A remarkable book... a magnificent example of how history and philosophy of science can be productively integrated. * Lakatos Award Committee *
This is a superb book on the timely topic of understanding by one of its main commentators and leading scholars over the years. It constitutes a thorough, intricate, detailed and well-argued development of the original and very fertile position of the author on the topic. * Mauricio Suarez, Complutense University Madrid *
This book * which creatively synthesizes two decades of his work into an elegant and provocative account of scientific understandingis a much anticipated and welcome addition to the literature.Kareem Khalifa, Notre Dame Philosophical Review *
A unique account of scientific understanding, with an eye on how understanding is achieved. This account * which draws from two decades of researchis presented in a form that is pleasant to read, accessible to a variety of readers, embedded into the longstanding philosophical debate about scientific explanations, and buttressed with numerous examples and three in-depth case studies from the history of physics.Insa Lawler, Metascience *
When it comes to getting clear on scientific understanding there is no better source to consult than Henk W. de Regt's Understanding Scientific Understanding. It is no exaggeration to say that this book is by far the best philosophical treatment of the concept of scientific understanding yet produced. * Kevin McCain, Science & Education *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197510261
Author Henk de Regt
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 155mm * 231mm * 20mm