Angela Potochnik (University of Cincinnati)
I motivate the idea that scientific understanding is often directly benefited from the inclusion of false posits, i.e. idealizations. This is because researchers' specific aims influence what generates the cognitive state of understanding. Accordingly, genuine understanding is promoted by idealizing difference-makers that are unimportant to researchers' immediate interests. This view predicts a continuing variety of representations of any given phenomenon, each indexed to a highly specific aim. I consider a challenge to these ideas based on two popular and related ideas: that understanding is factive, and that it is an objective matter how explanations should represent the world.
