Making Sense of Robustness Through the Modal Understanding Framework

• Main Author: O'Reilly, Grayson
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: ScholarWorks at University of Montana 2020
• Subjects: Elliott; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/gsrc/2020/332/1; https://scholarworks.umt.edu/context/gsrc/article/1726/type/native/viewcontent/oreilly_grayson_oral.pptx

I track the robustness discourse beginning with Richard Levins’ influential 1966 article followed by Steven Orzack and Elliott Sober’s response, and then highlight contemporary philosophers in order to demonstrate the problematic nature of robustness. Through this discourse I arrive at a clear picture of the capabilities and shortcomings of robustness and demonstrate that we require a more flexible framework of scientific understanding in order to make sense of robustness given our current intuitions and practices and in the face of an urgent climate crisis. I argue that Soazig Le Bihan's modal view does just that. I lay out how we may make sense of robustness through the modal view of understanding by showing the way in which robustness reveals how various representations of the target phenomena could relate in possible worlds and constitutes understanding. From this type navigating power follows heuristic value. So by definition, robustness provides modal understanding and is thus epistemically valuable. This allows us to make sense of our intuition that seems to indicate that robust theorems, while they may not say anything about the real world, are still valuable. Finally, I look at several studies examining ice sheet/ice shelf models in order to demonstrate how a modal understanding of robustness may look in practice.