ABSTRACT
This chapter will present the Hodgkin–Huxley model, by now a classic biophysical model of the nerve impulse. The model has been considered as one of the most successful mathematical models in neurophysiology and is addressed in neuroscience textbooks to this date. Notwithstanding the success of the Hodgkin–Huxley model, there is a set of recalcitrant evidence that the model fails to address. This has motivated the development of a different family of mathematical models of the nerve impulse that challenge the electricity-centered approach advanced by the Hodgkin–Huxley model. These models are based on thermodynamics instead of electromagnetic laws. Taking these models seriously challenges the earlier philosophical discussions of the epistemic value of the Hodgkin–Huxley model, providing new material for the philosophical discussion on explanation, idealization, abstraction, and the relationship between physics and biology that rose with respect to the Hodgkin–Huxley model.
