Laura Felline
University of Cagliari, Italy
Spring 2009
Structural Explanations

Laura is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Cagliari (Italy).

In April 2008 she received her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Rome III, with a dissertation titled “Structural Explanations”. The dissertation was devoted to the defense and development of the central idea sketched in Hughes’ and Clifton’s theory of structural explanation, which claims that within some physical theories (notably Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity), locating phenomena within a coherent and unified mathematical model is explanatory in itself.

While at the Center she will carry on her work on structural explanation, with the aim of providing new case studies for the theory, and of studying the relationship between structural explanation and causal explanation, as well as between structural explanation and structural realism.