Lina Jansson

I am an associate professor working at the philosophy department at the University of Nottingham. I did my PhD at the University of Michigan and my undergraduate degree at Oxford University. I used to work at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. More details on my academic history can be found in a short version of my curriculum vitae. My email address can be found here.

My main research interest has centred around questions that have to do with the nature of explanation. This has led me to work on questions in the history and philosophy science, the philosophy of physics, and in metaphysics. I have worked on the debate over the status of Newton's theory of gravity, problems for causal accounts of explanation, how to allow laws of nature to do explanatory work independently of causal underpinnings, and how to account for our judgements of antisymmetry in specific cases that motivate the introduction of notions such as ontological dependence and ground.

In upcoming work I will address the role of explanation in theory confirmation more broadly drawing on work supported by the Templeton Foundation during my recently completed MSc in Gravity, Particles, and Fields.

Articles and Book Chapters

The Explanatory Value of Selecting the Appropriate Scale(s)
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics, E. Knox and A. Wilson (eds.), Routledge, 2021

Can Pragmatism About Quantum Theory Handle Objectivity About Explanations?
Scientific Realism and the Quantum, S. French and J. Saatsi (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2020

Richard Healey's pragmatist approach to quantum theory promises a middle road between realism and anti-realism. However, in order to capture quantum theory's explanatory power the pragmatist approach gives up a putative truism about explanation. Namely, that explanation demands accurate representation of the target system. This threatens to undermine our ability to distinguish explanations from non-explanations in an objective way. I develop a criterion internal to explanation that puts a systematic restriction on the explanatory roles of non-representational (or not adequately representing) explanatory resources. I show that this allows the pragmatist approach to keep the realist commitment to objective explanation even while weakening the typical realist commitment to the putative truism about explanation. However, I also argue that this way of tackling the problem does not allow us to have a middle road without some explanatory sacrifices. Quantum states and the Born rule can be part of explanations but no longer the explanatory initial input.

Network Explanations and Explanatory Directionality
Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society B, 2020

Network explanations raise foundational questions about the nature of scientific explanations. The challenge discussed in this article comes from the fact that network explanations are often thought to be non-causal, i.e. they do not describe the dynamical or mechanistic interactions responsible for some behaviour, instead they appeal to topological properties of network models describing the system. These non-causal features are often though to be valuable precisely because they they do not invoke mechanistic or dynamical interactions and provide insights that are not available through causal explanations. Here, I address a central difficulty facing attempts to move away from causal models of explanation; namely, how to recover the directionality of explanation. Within causal models the directionality of explanation is identified with the direction of causation. This solution is no longer available once we move to non-causal accounts of explanation. I will suggest a solution to this problem that emphasises the role of conditions application. In doing so, I will challenge the idea that sui generis mathematical dependencies are the key to understand non-causal explanations. The upshot is a conceptual account of explanation that accommodates the possibility of non-causal network explanations. It also provides guidance for how to evaluate such explanations.

Explanatory Abstractions, with Juha Saatsi
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 70(3), 2019, (penultimate version)

A number of philosophers have recently suggested that some abstract, plausibly non-causal and/or mathematical, explanations explain in a way that is radically different from the way causal explanations explain. Namely, while causal explanations explain by providing information about causal dependence, allegedly some abstract explanations explain in a way tied to the independence of the explanandum from the microdetails, or causal laws, for example. We oppose this recent trend to regard abstractions as explanatory in some sui generis way, and argue that a prominent account of casual explanation can be naturally extended to capture explanations that radically abstract away from microphysical and causal-nomological details. To this end, we distinguish different senses in which an explanation can be more or less abstract and analyse the connection between explanations' abstractness and their explanatory power. According to our analysis abstract explanations have much in common with counterfactual causal explanations.

When Are Structural Equation Models Apt? Causation versus Grounding
Explanation Beyond Causation: Philosophical Perspectives on Non-Causal Explanation, A. Reutlinger and J. Saatsi (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2018

While much about the notion of ground in contemporary metaphysics is contested, there is large agreement that ground is closely connected to a certain kind of explanation. Recently, Schaffer [2016] and Wilson [2016, forthcoming] have argued that ground is a relation that is very closely related to causation and that grounding explanations should be given an account in broadly interventionist terms through the use of structural equations and directed graphs. Such an approach offers the potential benefit of a largely unified framework for explanations with different relations, or different species of the same relation, backing different types of explanation. However, I argue that this benefit cannot be realised since there are crucial differences between causal explanations and grounding explanations in how we can evaluate the aptness of the models in question.

Explanatory Asymmetries, Ground, and Ontological Dependence
Erkenntnis, 82(1), 2017, (penultimate version)

The notions of ground and ontological dependence have made a prominent resurgence in much of contemporary metaphysics. However, objections have been raised. On the one hand, objections have been raised to the need for distinctively metaphysical notions of ground and onto- logical dependence. On the other, objections have been raised to the usefulness of adding ground and ontological dependence to the existing store of other metaphysical notions. Even the logical properties of ground and ontological dependence are under debate. In this article, I focus on how to account for the judgements of non-symmetry in several of the cases that motivate the introduction of notions like ground and ontological dependence. By focusing on the notion of explanation relative to a theory, I conclude that we do not need to postulate a distinctively asymmetric metaphysical notion in order to account for these judgements.

Quantitative Parsimony: Probably for the Better, with Jonathan Tallant
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 68(3) 2017, (penultimate version)

Our aim in this paper is to offer a new justification for preferring theories that are more quantitatively parsimonious than their rivals. We discuss cases where it seems clear that those involved opted for more quantitatively parsimonious theories. We extend previous work on quantitative parsimony by offering an independent probabilistic justification for preferring the more quantitatively parsimonious theories in particular episodes of theory choice. Our strategy allows us to avoid worries that other considerations, such as pragmatic factors of computational tractability, etc., could be the driving ones in the historical cases under consideration.

Everettian Quantum Mechanics and Physical Probability: Against the Principle of "State Supervenience"
Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 53, 2016, (penultimate version)

Everettian quantum mechanics faces the challenge of how to make sense of probability and probabilistic reasoning in a setting where there is typically no unique outcome of measurements. Wallace has built on a proof by Deutsch to argue that a notion of probability can be recovered in the many worlds setting. In particular, Wallace argues that a rational agent has to assign probabilities in accordance with the Born rule. This argument relies on a rationality constraint that Wallace calls state supervenience. I argue that state supervenience is not defensible as a rationality constraint for Everettian agents unless we already invoke probabilistic notions.

Explanatory Asymmetries: Laws of Nature Rehabilitated
The Journal of Philosophy, 112(11), 2015, (penultimate version)

The problem of explanatory non-symmetries provides the strongest reason to abandon the view that laws can figure in explanations without causal underpinnings. I argue that this problem can be overcome. The solution that I propose starts from noticing the importance of conditions of application when laws do explanatory work and I go on to develop a notion of nomological (non-causal) dependence that can tackle the non-symmetry problem. The strategy is to show how a strong notion of counterfactual dependence as guaranteed by the laws is a plausible account of what we aim towards when we give law-based explanations. Even though we typically do not achieve explanations that fulfil these strong constraints, it is possible to give a non-causal account for the failure of symmetry in the troubling cases-that causal notions are typically invoked to solve-by keeping this goal in mind. The aim of this project is not to deny that causal relations can do explanatory work, but to restore laws of nature as capable of being explanatory even in the absence of any knowledge of causal underpinnings.

Causal Theories of Explanation and the Challenge of Explanatory Disagreement
Philosophy of Science, 81(3), 2014, (penultimate version)

When evaluating the success of causal theories of explanation the focus has typically been on the legitimacy of causal relations and on putative examples of explanations that we cannot capture in causal terms. Here I motivate the existence of a third kind of problem: the difficulty of accounting for explanatory disputes. Moreover, I argue that this problem remains even if the first two are settled and that it threatens to undercut one of the central motivations for causal accounts of explanation, namely, the causal account of the directionality of scientific explanation.

Newton's "satis est": A New Explanatory Role for Laws
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 44(4), 2013

In this paper I argue that Newton's stance on explanation in physics was enabled by his overall methodology and that it neither committed him to embrace action at a distance nor to set aside philosophical and metaphysical questions. Rather his methodology allowed him to embrace a non-causal, yet non-inferior, kind of explanation. I suggest that Newton holds that the theory developed in the Principia provides a genuine explanation, namely a law-based one, but that we also lack something explanatory, namely a causal account of the explanandum. Finally, I argue that examining what it takes to have law-based explanation in the face of agnosticism about the causal process makes it possible to recast the debate over action at a distance between Leibniz and Newton as empirically and methodologically motivated on both sides.

Reviews

Review of Jan Faye, The Nature of Scientific Thinking: On Interpretation, Explanation and Understanding,
International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 29(2), 2015

Review of Michael Strevens, Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation
Philosophical Review, 121(4), 2012

Review of Alisa Bokulich, Reexamining the Quantum-Classical Relation: Beyond Reductionism and Pluralism, with Gordon Belot
Studies In History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 41(1), 2010

Work in Progress

At the moment I am working on the role of models that involve fictional (as opposed to merely idealised) elements in explanation. In a related project, I am working on how we can come to have evidence for a proposition being a law of nature (as opposed to merely true) without committing to Humean supervenience about laws of nature. I am also working on the explanatory connection between spacetime symmetries and conservation laws as well as the role of explanation in model confirmation.

Public Presentations, Videos, etc.

Is time like space when it comes to explanatory directionality? at Space and Time after Quantum Gravity, Geneva (Chicago)

Action at a Distance: From Newton's Gravity to Quantum Theory at St Cross Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics, Oxford

Adam's Opticks interview on Scientific Explanation

Scientific explanation from the history and philosophy of science to general philosophy of science (and back again... and again... and again) Auxiliary Hypotheses, BJPS blog

Teaching

I am am a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) through the Nottingham Recognition Scheme.

Below are some of the modules that I have taught. Please email me for syllabi.

University of Nottingham

Space, Time and Motion (Spring 2023)
Language, Metaphysics, and Metametaphysics (Autumn 2017)
Topics in the Philosophy of Science (Spring 2017, Autumn 2017, Autumn 2018)
Philosophy of Science: From Positivism to Postmodernism (Autumn 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019)

Nanyang Technological University

Independent Study on Laws of Nature (Winter 2015)
Knowledge and Reality (Winter 2014)
Philosophy of Science (Fall 2014, Fall 2013, Winter 2012)
Logic and Paradoxes (Fall 2015, Winter 2015, Winter 2014, Fall 2013, Winter 2012)
Introduction to Philosophy (Fall 2013, Fall 2012)
Logical and Critical Thinking (Fall 2014, Winter 2013, Fall 2011)

University of Michigan

The Methods of Science (Fall 2009)
Introduction to Symbolic Logic (Spring 2009)

Personal

I grew up in Sweden, and I still like to read Swedish literature. I enjoy etching, painting, and pottery. I often go for slow and unimpressively short runs, and I even more often drink more coffee than is good for me.