Explanation, Universality, and Renormalization Across the Sciences

The renormalization group (RG) provides an explanation of universality across a range of heterogeneous physical systems; e.g. fluids and magnets. Given their importance to debates concerning explanation and reduction, several philosophers have analyzed the distinctive features of RG methods and their use of the thermodynamic limit to explain universality (Batterman 2002, 2010; Butterfield 2011; Morrison 2015; Reutlinger 2014). While this literature has produced important insights, it has typically focused exclusively on applications of RG within physics. Recently, however, there has been growing attention paid to applications of renormalization, universality, and limiting behaviors in other fields; e.g. in econophysics, chemistry, and biology. In addition, there have been various attempts to incorporate RG explanations into more general accounts of scientific explanation that apply across several sciences (Batterman and Rice 2014; Rice 2013; Reutlinger 2016). This symposium will investigate the use of RG explanations, universality, and limits across a range of scientific disciplines. Determining whether these concepts can be fruitfully exported to cases outside of physics — and perhaps incorporated into more general accounts of explanation and idealization — will expand the discussion of RG explanations into contemporary debates in philosophy of economics, philosophy of biology, philosophy of chemistry, and general philosophy of science.