Structural explanations in Minkowski spacetime: which account of models?

In this paper we argue that structural explanations are an effective way of explaining wellknown relativistic phenomena like length contraction and time dilation, and then try to understand how this can be possible by looking at the literature on scientific models. In particular, we ask whether and how a model like that provided by Minkowski spacetime can be said to represent the physical world, in such a way that it can successfully explain physical phenomena structurally. We conclude by claiming that a partial isomorphic approach to scientific representation can supply an answer only if supplemented by a robust injection of pragmatic factors. In this paper we defend the thesis that structural explanations are an effective way of explaining well-known relativistic phenomena like length contraction and time dilation, and then try to understand how this can be possible by looking at the literature on scientific models. In particular, we ask whether and how Minkowski spacetime’s model can be said to represent the physical world, in such a way that it can successfully explain physical phenomena structurally. In the first section, we try to briefly justify the above thesis by providing a brief sketch of structural explanations as they are used in Minkowski spacetime, in contrast to attempts at explaining the relativistic phenomena dynamically (Brown 2005). In the second section we offer a brief survey of the state of the art in the debate between the “representationalist” and the pragmatic conception of models, with particular attention to the inferentialist conception proposed by Suárez (1999, 2003, 2004). In the third section we argue that, in order both to solve some problems within Suárez’s inferentialist approach and to account in a consistent way for the use that cognitive agents make of models, it is necessary to assume some kind of partial isomorphism between the mathematical model and the physical target. Our conclusion − the validity of which is here tested only in the specific case of structural explanations in Minkowski spacetime − makes the opposition between