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The Hodgkin-Huxley Equations and the Concrete Model: Comments on Craver, Schaffner, and Weber

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jim Bogen
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Abstract

I claim that the Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) current equations owe a great deal of their importance to their role in bringing results from experiments on squid giant action preparations to bear on the study of the action potential in other neurons in other in vitro and in vivo environments. I consider ideas from Weber and Craver about the role of Coulomb's and other fundamental equations in explaining the action potential and in HH's development of their equations. Also, I offer an embellishment to Schaffner's emergent unifier conception of the HH model.

Information

Type
Where Neuroscience Meets Physics: Laws, Explanation, and the Hodgkin-Huxley Model of the Action Potential
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 75 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2006 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Cristina Bicchieri and Jason Alexander , December 2008 , pp. 1034 - 1046
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Carl Craver, Ken Schaffner, Marcel Weber, and audience members who joined the discussion at our session.

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