Idealizations and analogies: Explaining critical phenomena

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.

Automated summary

The article discusses the importance of the universality of critical phenomena in scientific explanation and philosophy of physics, emphasizing the key role of commonalities in explanation. By comparing the analogy strategies of different models, a better understanding of the universality of critical phenomena can be achieved.