Toward a Theory of the Process of Explanation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Explanation' appears to be ambiguous between a representational-artifact, an objective, and a doxastic sense. That the distinctions between the three are still poorly understood we regard as an impediment to progress in the philosophy of science and as a source of the field's resistance to greater integration with experimental psychology. We elucidate the overlapping contours of the three sense of 'explanation' using a variation on Powell & Horne's Semantic Integration paradigm, showing that both laypeople and scientists regard doxastic explanations as constitutive of representational-artifact, but not of objective, explanations and accuracy as closely connected to objective, but not representational-artifact, explanations.
General Theories of Explanation: Buyer Beware
We argue that there is no general theory of explanation that spans the sciences, mathematics, and ethics, etc. More specifically, there is no good reason to believe that substantive and domain-invariant constraints on explanatory information exist. Using Nickel (Noûs 44(2):305–328, 2010) as an exemplar of the contrary, generalist position, we first show that Nickel’s arguments rest on several ambiguities, and then show that even when these ambiguities are charitably corrected, Nickel’s defense of general theories of explanation is inadequate along several different dimensions. Specifically, we argue that Nickel’s argument has three fatal flaws. First, he has not provided any compelling illustrations of domain-invariant constraints on explanation. Second, in order to fend off the most vehement skeptics of domain-invariant theories of explanation, Nickel must beg all of the important questions. Third, Nickel’s examples of explanations from different domains with common explanatory structure rely on incorrect formulations of the explanations under consideration, circular justifications, and/or a mischaracterization of the position Nickel intends to critique. Given that the best and most elaborate defense of the generalist position fails in so many ways, we conclude that the standard practice in philosophy (and in philosophy of science in particular), which is to develop theories of explanation that are tailored to specific domains, still is justified. For those who want to buy into a more ambitious project:beware of the costs!
Information and Explanation: An Inconsistent Triad and Solution
European Journal for the Philosophy of Science
An important strand in philosophy of science takes scientific explanation to consist in the conveyance of some kind of information (e.g., Lewis 1986; Railton 1981). Here I argue that this idea is also implicit in some core arguments of mechanists, some of whom (e.g., Craver 2014) are proponents of an ontic conception of explanation that might be thought inconsistent with it (Piccinini and Craver 2011; Zednik 2015). However, informational accounts seem to conflict with some lay and scientific commonsense judgments and a central goal of the theory of explanation, because information is relative to the background knowledge of agents (Dretske 1981). Sometimes we make lay judgments about whether a model is an explanation simpliciter, not just an explanation relative to some particular agent. And as philosophers of explanation, we would like a philosophical account to tell us when a model is an explanation simpliciter, not just when a model is an explanation relative to some particular agent. Thus, even if one's account of explanation is not concerned with explanation qua communicative or speech act, the account's reliance on the concept of information generates a prima facie conflict between the claims that 1) explanation is the conveyance of information, 2) information is relative to the background knowledge of an agent, and 3) some models are explanations not relative to the background knowledge of any particular agent. I sketch a solution to this puzzle by distinguishing informationally what I call "explanation simpliciter" from what I call "explanation-to," relativizing the latter to an individual's background knowledge and the former to what I call "total scientific background knowledge".
"Explanation and Understanding" Revisited
I. Niiniluoto & T. Wallgren (eds.) Human Condition. Philosophical Essays in Honour of the Centennial Anniversary of Georg Henrik von Wright, Acta Philosophica Fennica, The Philosophical Society of Finland, Helsinki, 339-353., 2017
"Explanation and Understanding" (1971) by Georg Henrik von Wright is a modern classic in analytic hermeneutics, and in the philosophy of the social sciences and humanities in general. In this work, von Wright argues against naturalism, or methodological monism, i.e. the idea that both the natural sciences and the social sciences follow broadly the same general scientific approach and aim to achieve causal explanations. Against this view, von Wright contends that the social sciences are qualitatively different from the natural sciences: according to his view, the natural sciences aim at causal explanations, whereas the purpose of the social sciences is to understand their subjects. In support of this conviction, von Wright also puts forward a version of the so-called logical connection argument. Von Wright views scientific explanation along the lines of the traditional covering law model. He suggests that the social sciences, in contrast, utilize what he calls “practical syllogism” in understanding human actions. In addition, von Wright presents in this work an original picture on causation: a version of the manipulability theory of causation. In the four decades following von Wright’s classic work, the overall picture in in the philosophy of science has changed significantly, and much progress has been made in various fronts. The aim of the contribution is to revisit the central ideas of "Explanation and Understanding" and evaluate them from this perspective. The covering law model of explanation and the regularity theory of causation behind it have since then fallen into disfavor, and virtually no one believes that causal explanations even in the natural sciences comply with the covering law model. No wonder then that covering law explanations are not found in the social sciences either. Ironically, the most popular theory of causal explanation in the philosophy of science nowadays is the interventionist theory, which is a descendant of the manipulability theory of von Wright and others. However, this theory can be applied with no special difficulties in both the natural sciences and the social sciences. Von Wright’s logical connection argument and his ideas concerning practical syllogisms are also critically assessed. It is argued that in closer scrutiny, they do not pose serious problems for the view that the social sciences too provide causal explanations. In sum, von Wright’s arguments against naturalism do not appear, in today’s perspective, particularly convincing.
Explanationism: Defended on All Sides
Logos & Episteme, 2015
Explanationists about epistemic justification hold that justification depends upon explanatory considerations. After a bit of a lull, there has recently been a resurgence of defenses of such views. Despite the plausibility of these defenses, explanationism still faces challenges. Recently, T. Ryan Byerly and Kraig Martin have argued that explanationist views fail to provide either necessary or sufficient conditions for epistemic justification. I argue that Byerly and Martin are mistaken on both accounts.
A normative account of the need for explanation
Synthese, 2015
Although explanation is a central topic in the philosophy of science and several important models of scientific explanation have been developed and widely discussed, there is one issue concerning explanation that has drawn very little attention, namely, why some phenomena 1 need explanation while some do not. Some may think that any phenomenon that has not been explained needs explanation. Others may think that if we divide (heretofore unexplained) phenomena into those that need explanation and those that do not, it is merely because we are puzzled by, or curious about, the former phenomena but not the latter. According to this line of thinking, the question of why some phenomena need explanation while some do not is a psychological question in disguise: the question is in fact why some people are puzzled 2 by some, but not all, phenomena and want to have an explanation of them. In this paper we will argue that the distinction between phenomena that need explanation and those that do not need one is philosophical, not psychological, because the distinction can be drawn normatively. We will propose a normative account of the need for explanation.
Explanatory Relevance. A central issue in the Theory of Explanation
The thesis addresses a topic at the interface between Philosophy of Language, Cognitive Studies and Philosophy of Science, i.e. explanatory relevance. An explanation, I claim, is first and foremost a relational concept, that affirms the existence of asymmetrical dependence relations within our representation of the world. However, the story cannot be that short. At some level everything is related to everything, and yet not every relation is explanatory: the Big Bang is not a good explanation for this abstract, although the abstract certainly depends on the Big Bang. What does explanatory relevance depend on? Not any dependence relation is good material for an explanation, it seems. But what criteria do we use to discriminate between them? Even more strikingly, we do not make judgements of relevance based on conscious reflections, after thorough comparisons and evaluations: we just know, and quite blatantly so, if an answer is irrelevant. This behaviour deserves a closer look. To properly address it, explanatory relevance has to be contextualised within its theoretical frame. Consequently, my study takes off from an analysis of the background philosophical work on explanation. Much work has been done towards the clarification of this highly elusive notion, but a somewhat homogeneous perspective has biased the terms of the debate, at least to some extent. Moreover, the nature of its relational dimension is not straightforward, thus part of the dissertation addresses the ontology of explanations and the controversial primary role played therein by causation. Starting from these premises, I suggest that explanatory relevance is not a matter of the nature of the dependence relation involved, which is an issue for metaphysical typology. Rather, I propose a view according to which there are (at least) two dimensions to relevance. I call ontological the relevance of a given dot of the interconnected net of dependencies to the obtaining of something, that I analyse using Michael Strevens' notion of difference-making, and cognitive the relevance that our mind/brain agrees to certain inputs and tasks, judged worth attending in the nondiscrete, continuous flux of experience. These two dimensions get together within a naturalistic perspective, that addresses human explanatory practice as the result of a selective pressure towards efficiency: humans are animals who are moved by the priority of survival, and chances of survival are enhanced by a cognitive system structured as to favour the priority of relevant factors and relations.
The Pragmatic-Rhetorical Theory of Explanation
Springer eBooks, 2007
Explanation is one of the most discussed notions in philosophy of science. This may be because there is little consensus among specialists on how explanation in a scientific context should be characterised. Three main approaches appear to be alive today: the formal-logical view, the ontological view, and the pragmatic view. Between these three classes of theories little agreement seems possible. Beyond the expectation that explanation is meant to provide a particular kind of information about facts of matter, there seems to be little agreement at all. Given this, the pragmatic view has at least one advantage, namely, its ability to accept the others. Alternative conceptions of explanation may be construed as promoting wholly possible goals of a given scientific explanation in so far as the pragmatic situation determines that it is appropriate to pursue these goals. What pragmatists deny is that any of these other views tell us what scientific explanation is or that they cover all forms of scientific explanation, i.e., that there is any one goal of scientific explanation. 1.1 Various approaches The formal-logical approach considers scientific explanation as something quite distinct and very different from ordinary explanation. It holds that every scientific explanation should have certain objective features by which it can be completely characterised and understood. Following Carl Hempel, a scientific explanation is to be construed as an argument with a propositional structure, i.e., an explanandum is a proposition that follows deductively from an explanans. This kind of approach gives us a prescriptive account of explanation in the sense that a proposition counts as a scientific explanation if, and only if, it fulfils certain formal requirements. As Hempel remarked, summarising his own position, "Explicating the concept of scientific explanation is not the same thing as writing an entry on the word 'explain' for the Oxford English Dictionary." 1 His approach offers certain norms with respect to which we can demarcate scientific explanations from other forms of explanation. Apart from Hempel's original covering law model this view includes approaches