Two scientific perspectives on nerve signal propagation: how incompatible approaches jointly promote progress in explanatory understanding: Two scientific perspectives on nerve signal propagation

• Published in: History and philosophy of the life sciences 2024, Vol.46 (4)
• Main Authors: Holland, Linda, de Regt, Henk W., Drukarch, Benjamin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Education; History of Science; Life Sciences; Original Paper; Philosophy; Philosophy of Biology; Philosophy of Science
• ISSN: 0391-9714; 1742-6316
• DOI: 10.1007/s40656-024-00644-4

We present a case study of two scientific perspectives on the phenomenon of nerve signal propagation, a bio-electric and a thermodynamic perspective, and compare this case with two accounts of scientific perspectivism: those of Michela Massimi and Juha Saatsi, respectively. We demonstrate that the interaction between the bio-electric perspective and the thermodynamic perspective can be captured in Saatsi’s terms of progress in explanatory understanding. Using insights from our case study, we argue that both the epistemic and pragmatic dimensions of scientific understanding are important for increasing explanatory understanding of phenomena. The epistemic dimension of understanding is important for increasing the number of actually answered what-if-things-had-been-different questions about a phenomenon, the pragmatic dimension for pointing out the potentially answerable what-if questions that have been overlooked or purposefully neglected thus far. Exposing the limitations of the acquired understanding within a particular perspective can be achieved by criticizing the assumptions that have been adopted to make models of the perspective intelligible, but that are considered problematic from a rival perspective.