The ontic conception of scientific explanation has been constructed and motivated on the basis of a putative lexical ambiguity in the term explanation. I raise a puzzle for this ambiguity claim, and then give a deflationary solution under which all ontically-rendered talk of explanation is merely elliptical; what it is elliptical for is a view of scientific explanation that altogether avoids the ontic conception. This result has revisionary consequences for New Mechanists and other philosophers of science, (...) many of whom have assimilated their conception of explanation to the ontic conception. (shrink)

This paper describes an alternative to the common view that explanation in the special sciences involves subsumption under laws. According to this alternative, whether or not a generalization can be used to explain has to do with whether it is invariant rather than with whether it is lawful. A generalization is invariant if it is stable or robust in the sense that it would continue to hold under a relevant if it is stable or robust in the sense that (...) it would continue to hold under a relevant class of changes. Unlike lawfulness, invariance comes in degrees and has other features that are well suited to capture the characteristics of explanatory generalizations in the special sciences. For example, a generalization can be invariant even if it has exceptions or holds only over a limited spatio-temporal interval. The notion of invariance can be used to resolve a number of dilemmas that arise in standard treatments of explanatory generalizations in the special sciences. (shrink)

Mathematics appears to play an explanatory role in science. This, in turn, is thought to pave a way toward mathematical Platonism. A central challenge for mathematical Platonists, however, is to provide an account of how mathematical explanations work. I propose a property-based account: physical systems possess mathematical properties, which either guarantee the presence of other mathematical properties and, by extension, the physical states that possess them; or rule out other mathematical properties, and their associated physical states. I explain why Platonists (...) should accept that physical systems have mathematical properties, and why a property based account is better than existing accounts of mathematical explanation. I close by considering whether nominalists can accept the view I propose here. I argue that they cannot. (shrink)

Since approval of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016, it has been widely and repeatedly claimed that the GDPR will legally mandate a ‘right to explanation’ of all decisions made by automated or artificially intelligent algorithmic systems. This right to explanation is viewed as an ideal mechanism to enhance the accountability and transparency of automated decision-making. However, there are several reasons to doubt both the legal existence and the feasibility of such a right. In contrast (...) to the right to explanation of specific automated decisions claimed elsewhere, the GDPR only mandates that data subjects receive meaningful, but properly limited, information (Articles 13-15) about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of automated decision-making systems, what we term a ‘right to be informed’. Further, the ambiguity and limited scope of the ‘right not to be subject to automated decision-making’ contained in Article 22 (from which the alleged ‘right to explanation’ stems) raises questions over the protection actually afforded to data subjects. These problems show that the GDPR lacks precise language as well as explicit and well-defined rights and safeguards against automated decision-making, and therefore runs the risk of being toothless. We propose a number of legislative and policy steps that, if taken, may improve the transparency and accountability of automated decision-making when the GDPR comes into force in 2018. (shrink)

Craver claims that mechanistic explanation is ontic, while Bechtel claims that it is epistemic. While this distinction between ontic and epistemic explanation originates with Salmon, the ideas have changed in the modern debate on mechanistic explanation, where the frame of the debate is changing. I will explore what Bechtel and Craver’s claims mean, and argue that good mechanistic explanations must satisfy both ontic and epistemic normative constraints on what is a good explanation. I will argue for (...) ontic constraints by drawing on Craver’s work in Sect. 2.1, and argue for epistemic constraints by drawing on Bechtel’s work in Sect. 2.2. Along the way, I will argue that Bechtel and Craver actually agree with this claim. I argue that we should not take either kind of constraints to be fundamental, in Sect. 3, and close in Sect. 4 by considering what remains at stake in making a distinction between ontic and epistemic constraints on mechanistic explanation. I suggest that we should not concentrate on either kind of constraint, to the neglect of the other, arguing for the importance of seeing the relationship as one of integration. (shrink)

According to a causal model of explanation, we explain phenomena by giving their causes or, where the phenomena are themselves causal regularities, we explain them by giving a mechanism linking cause and effect. If we explain why smoking causes cancer, we do not give the cause of this causal connection, but we do give the causal mechanism that makes it. The claim that to explain is to give a cause is not only natural and plausible, but it also avoids (...) many of the objections to other accounts of explanation, such as the views that to explain is to give a reason to believe the phenomenon occurred, to somehow make the phenomenon familiar, or to give a Deductive-Nomological argument. Unlike the reason for belief account, a causal model makes a clear distinction between understanding why a phenomenon occurs and merely knowing that it does, and the model does so in a way that makes understanding unmysterious and objective. Understanding is not some sort of super-knowledge, but simply more knowledge: knowledge of the phenomenon and knowledge of its causal history. A causal model makes it clear how something can explain without itself being explained, and so avoids the regress of whys, since we can know a phenomenon's cause without knowing the cause of the cause. It also accounts for legitimate self-evidencing explanations, explanations where the phenomenon is an essential part of the evidence that the explanation is correct, so the explanation can not supply a non-circular reason for believing the phenomenon occurred. There is no barrier to knowing a cause through its effects and also knowing that it is their cause. The speed of recession of a star explains its observed red-shift, even though the shift is an essential part of the evidence for its speed of recession. The model also avoids the most serious objection to the familiarity view, which is that some phenomena are familiar yet not understood, since a phenomenon can be perfectly familiar, such as the blueness of the sky or the fact that the same side of the moon always faces the earth, even if we do not know its cause. Finally, a causal model avoids many of the objections to the Deductive-Nomological model. Ordinary explanations do not have to meet the requirements of the Deductive-Nomological model, because one does not need to give a law to give a cause, and one does not need to know a law to have good reason to believe that a cause is a cause. As for the notorious over-permissiveness of the Deductive-Nomological model, the reason recession explains red-shift but not conversely, is simply that causes explain effects but not conversely, and the reason a conjunction of laws does not explain its conjuncts is that conjunctions do not cause their conjuncts. (shrink)

Most authors on metaphysical grounding have taken full grounding to be an internal relation in the sense that it's necessary that if the grounds and the grounded both obtain, then the grounds ground the grounded. The negative part of this essay exploits empirical and provably nonparadoxical self-reference to prove conclusively that even immediate full grounding isn't an internal relation in this sense. The positive, second part of this essay uses the notion of a “completely satisfactory explanation” to shed light (...) on the logic of ground in the presence of self-reference. This allows us to develop a satisfactory logic of ground and recover a sense in which grounding is still an internal relation. (shrink)

In a recent book and an article, Carl Craver construes the relations between different levels of a mechanism, which he also refers to as constitutive relations, in terms of mutual manipulability (MM). Interpreted metaphysically, MM implies that inter-level relations are symmetrical. MM thus violates one of the main desiderata of scientific explanation, namely explanatory asymmetry. Parts of Craver’s writings suggest a metaphysical interpretation of MM, and Craver explicitly commits to constitutive relationships being symmetrical. The paper furthermore explores the option (...) of interpreting MM epistemologically, as a means for individuating mechanisms. It is argued that MM then is redundant. MM should therefore better be abandoned. (shrink)

Molecular biologists and biochemists often use diagrams to present hypotheses. Analysis of diagrams shows that their content can be expressed with linguistic representations. Why do biologists use visual representations instead? One reason is simple comprehensibility: some diagrams present information which is readily understood from the diagram format, but which would not be comprehensible if the same information was expressed linguistically. But often diagrams are used even when concise, comprehensible linguistic alternatives are available. I explain this phenomenon by showing why diagrammatic (...) representation is especially well suited for a particular kind of explanation common in molecular biology and biochemistry: namely, functional analysis, in which a capacity of the system is explained in terms of capacities of its component parts. (shrink)

This volume distinguishes between two main traditions in the philosophy of science - the aristotelian, with its stress on explanation in terms of purpose and intentionality, and the galilean, which takes causal explanation as primary. It then traces the complex history of these competing traditions as they are manifested in such movements as positivism, idealism, Marxism and contemporary linguistic analysis. Hempels's theory of scientific explanation, the claims of cybernetics the rise of an analytic philosophy of action and (...) the revival of hermenuetics are all discussed. The volume also deals with causal explanation, intentionality and teleological explanation, and explanation in history and the social sciences. The author concludes that explanation of human actions cannot be reduced to simple causality, and discusses the implications of this conclusion for the disciplines of history and sociology. (shrink)

The Explanation of Social Action is a critique of the conventional understanding of methods of explanation in the social sciences. It argues that any scientific approach to explanation must build on the phenomenological experience of actors.

Philosophers of mathematics commonly distinguish between explanatory and non-explanatory proofs. An important subclass of mathematical proofs are proofs by induction. Are they explanatory? This paper addresses the question, based on general principles about explanation. First, a recent argument for a negative answer is discussed and rebutted. Second, a case is made for a qualified positive take on the issue.

It has often been argued that Humean accounts of natural law cannot account for the role played by laws in scientific explanations. Loewer (Philosophical Studies 2012) has offered a new reply to this argument on behalf of Humean accounts—a reply that distinguishes between grounding (which Loewer portrays as underwriting a kind of metaphysical explanation) and scientific explanation. I will argue that Loewer’s reply fails because it cannot accommodate the relation between metaphysical and scientific explanation. This relation also (...) resolves a puzzle about scientific explanation that Hempel and Oppenheim (Philosophy of Science 15:135–75, 1948) encountered. (shrink)

Many philosophers argue that explanatoriness plays no special role in confirmation – that “inference to the best explanation” (IBE) incorrectly demands giving hypotheses extra credit for their potential explanatory qualities beyond the credit they already deserve for their predictive successes. This paper argues against one common strategy for responding to this thought – that is, for trying to fit IBE within a Bayesian framework. That strategy argues that a hypothesis’ explanatory quality (its “loveliness”) contributes either to its prior probability (...) or to its likelihood. This paper argues that this strategy fails because it must give different treatments to two hypotheses that are unlovely for the very same reason. The strategy therefore loses the insight into scientific reasoning that its reconstruction in terms of IBE is supposed to provide. The paper then provides a Bayesian account of the confirmatory role of explanatoriness that represents explanatory quality as having an impact in the same place for two hypotheses that are unlovely for the very same reason. This approach works by “putting explanation back into IBE” – that is, by invoking hypotheses that refer explicitly to scientific explanation and by invoking the agent's background opinions regarding the kind of explanation that the evidence is liable to have. On this approach, there is no list of “explanatory virtues” the possession of which always helps to make an explanation better. Rather, for different facts, there are different characteristics that our background knowledge of other explanations gives us some reason to expect the given fact's explanation to possess. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline two strands of evidence for the conclusion that the dynamical approach to cognitive science both seeks and provides covering law explanations. Two of the most successful dynamical models—Kelso’s model of rhythmic finger movement and Thelen et al.’s model of infant perseverative reaching—can be seen to provide explanations which conform to the famous explanatory scheme first put forward by Hempel and Oppenheim. In addition, many prominent advocates of the dynamical approach also express the provision of this (...) kind of explanation as a goal of dynamical cognitive science. I conclude by briefly outlining two consequences. First, dynamical cognitive science’s explanatory style may strengthen its links to the so-called “situated” approach to cognition, but, secondly, it may also undermine the widespread intuition that dynamics is related to emergentism in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Mark Colyvan (2010) raises two problems for ‘easy road’ nominalism about mathematical objects. The first is that a theory’s mathematical commitments may run too deep to permit the extraction of nominalistic content. Taking the math out is, or could be, like taking the hobbits out of Lord of the Rings. I agree with the ‘could be’, but not (or not yet) the ‘is’. A notion of logical subtraction is developed that supports the possibility, questioned by Colyvan, of bracketing a theory’s (...) mathematical aspects to obtain, as remainder, what it says ‘mathematics aside’. The other problem concerns explanation. Several grades of mathematical involvement in physical explanation are distinguished, by analogy with Quine’s three grades of modal involvement. The first two grades plausibly obtain, but they do not require mathematical objects. The third grade is likelier to require mathematical objects. But it is not clear from Colyvan’s example that the third grade really obtains. (shrink)

Recently, several authors have argued that scientific understanding should be a new topic of philosophical research. In this article, I argue that the three most developed accounts of understanding--Grimm's, de Regt's, and de Regt and Dieks's--can be replaced by earlier accounts of scientific explanation without loss. Indeed, in some cases, such replacements have clear benefits.

People often think of objects teleologically. For instance, we might understand a hammer in terms of its purpose of driving in nails. But how should we understand teleological thinking in the first place? This paper separates mere teleology (simply ascribing a telos) and teleological explanation (thinking something is explained by its telos) by examining cases where an object was designed for one purpose but is now widely used for a different purpose. Across four experiments, we show that teleology judgments (...) and teleological explanation judgments are dissociable, and identify three factors that influenced teleology judgments (and one that did not). (shrink)

Recently, Kit Fine's (1994) view that modal truths aretrue in virtue of,grounded in, orexplained byessentialist truths has been under attack. In what follows we offer two responses to the wave of criticism against his view. While the first response is pretty straightforward, the second is based on the distinction between, what we call,Reductive Finean EssentialismandNon-Reductive Finean Essentialism. Engaging the work of Bob Hale onNon-Reductive Finean Essentialism, we aim to show that the arguments against Fine's view are unconvincing, while we acknowledge (...) the presence of a deep standoff between the two views. (shrink)

The connection between understanding and explanation has recently been of interest to philosophers. Inglis and Mejía-Ramos (Synthese, 2019) propose that within mathematics, we should accept a functional account of explanation that characterizes explanations as those things that produce understanding. In this paper, I start with the assumption that this view of mathematical explanation is correct and consider what we can consequently learn about mathematical explanation. I argue that this view of explanation suggests that we should (...) shift the question of explanation away from why-questions and towards a “what’s going on here” question. Additionally, I argue that when we recognize the connection between understanding and explanation we naturally see how more than just proof can be explanatory. I expand this point by detailing how definitions and diagrams can be explanatory. In all, we see that when we take seriously the connection between understanding and explanation, we get a better sense of how explanation arises within mathematics. (shrink)

Much recent work on mathematical explanation has presupposed that the phenomenon involves explanatory proofs in an essential way. I argue that this view, ‘proof chauvinism’, is false. I then look in some detail at the explanation of the solvability of polynomial equations provided by Galois theory, which has often been thought to revolve around an explanatory proof. The article concludes with some general worries about the effects of chauvinism on the theory of mathematical explanation. 1Introduction 2Why I (...) Am Not a Proof Chauvinist 2.1Proof chauvinism and mathematical practice 2.2Proof chauvinism and philosophy 3An Example: Galois Theory and Explanatory Proof 4Conclusion. (shrink)

According to a number of recent philosophers, knowledge has an intimate relationship with rationality. Some philosophers hold, in particular, that rational agents do things for good motivating reasons, and that p can be one’s motivating reason for -ing (acting/believing/fearing/etc.) only if one knows that p. This paper argues against this view and in favor of the view that p cannot be one’s motivating reason for -ing—in the relevant sense—unless there is an appropriate explanatory connection between the fact that p and (...) one’s -ing. I argue that this view offers a better account of the cases alleged to support the knowledge view. (shrink)

In this paper (which is, at best, a work in progress), I discuss different modes of scientific explanation identified by philosophers (Hempel, Salmon, Kitcher, Friedman, Hughes) and examine how well or badly they capture the "explanations" of phenomena that modern quantum theory provides. I tentatively conclude that quantum explanation is best seen as "structural explanation", and spell out in detail how this works in the case of explaining vacuum correlations. Problems and prospects for structural explanation in (...) quantum theory are also discussed. (shrink)

Mathematical explanations are poorly understood. Although mathematicians seem to regularly suggest that some proofs are explanatory whereas others are not, none of the philosophical accounts of what such claims mean has become widely accepted. In this paper we explore Wilkenfeld’s suggestion that explanations are those sorts of things that generate understanding. By considering a basic model of human cognitive architecture, we suggest that existing accounts of mathematical explanation are all derivable consequences of Wilkenfeld’s ‘functional explanation’ proposal. We therefore (...) argue that the explanatory criteria offered by earlier accounts can all be thought of as features that make it more likely that a mathematical proof will generate understanding. On the functional account, features such as characterising properties, unification, and salience correlate with explanatoriness, but they do not define explanatoriness. (shrink)

The recent literature in philosophy of biology has drawn attention to the different sorts of explanations proffered in the biological sciences—we have molecular, biomedical, and evolutionary explanations. Do these explanations all have a common structure or relation that they seek to capture? This paper will answer in the negative. I defend a pluralistic and pragmatic approach to explanation. Using examples from classical population genetics, I argue that formal demonstrations, and even strictly “mathematical truths,” may serve as explanatory in different (...) historical contexts. (shrink)

The indispensability argument seeks to establish the existence of mathematical objects. The success of the indispensability argument turns on finding cases of genuine extra- mathematical explanation. In this paper, I identify a new case of extra- mathematical explanation, involving the search patterns of fully-aquatic marine predators. I go on to use this case to predict the prevalence of extra- mathematical explanation in science.

ABSTRACT Proponents of mechanistic explanation have recently suggested that all explanation in the cognitive sciences is mechanistic, even functional explanation. This last claim is surprising, for functional explanation has traditionally been conceived as autonomous from the structural details that mechanistic explanations emphasize. I argue that functional explanation remains autonomous from mechanistic explanation, but not for reasons commonly associated with the phenomenon of multiple realizability. 1Introduction 2Mechanistic Explanation: A Quick Primer 3Functional Explanation: An (...) Example 4Autonomy as Lack of Constraint 5The Price of Autonomy 6Another Argument against Autonomy 7Conclusion: Autonomy and Multiple Realization. (shrink)

The theories of pre-existence and epigenesis are typically taken to be opposing theories of generation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One can be a pre-existence theorist only if one does not espouse epigenesis and vice versa. It has also been recognized, however, that the line between pre-existence and epigenesis in the nineteenth century, at least, is considerably less sharp and clear than it was in earlier centuries. The debate (1759-1777) between Albrecht von Haller and Caspar Friedrich Wolff on their (...) theories of generation is usually taken to be a debate between a pre-existence theorist and an epigeneticist, and the supposed fact that these two theories of generation are mutually exclusive explains (so the story goes) the divide between Haller and Wolff. However, it’s not clear that Haller endorsed an especially robust form of pre-existence, and nor is it clear that Wolff’s theory of generation -- once he considered it carefully -- is clear epigenetic. Rather, Haller’s theory of generation is marked by traces of epigensis and Wolff’s theory has elements of pre-existence theory. This is not to say that their theories of generation are basically the same, but the debate between the two ought not to be framed in terms of pre-existence versus epigenesis. Their points of difference must be explained in some other way. In this way, their controversy bears characteristics of similar disputes over generation in the nineteenth century more than it resembles those in the seventeenth century. In this paper, I argue that (a) Haller’s and Wolff’s theories both blend elements from pre-existence and epigenesis; (b) but there are still deeply-rooted differences between the two generation theories; (c) one source of these differences is that Haller and Wolff have divergent conceptions of what an adequate explanation is; (d) we can see that they have different conceptions of what constitutes an adequate explanation by paying heed to their evaluations of Descartes’ epistemology and methodology in his theory of generation (such as it is); and (e) this shows that one of the main differences between Haller’s generation theory and that of Wolff is the degree to which each thinks we need to (and indeed can) explain the nature of the causes -- both efficient and final -- at play during the formation of organic beings. (shrink)

Abstract‘Possibilist Explanation’ is a promising account of scientific explanation which avoids the familiar problems of “how-possibly explanations”. It explains an event by showing how-actually it was epistemically possible, instead of why it was epistemically necessary. Its explanandum is the epistemic possibility of an actual event previously considered epistemically impossible. To define PE, two new concepts are introduced: ‘permissive condition’ and ‘possibilist law’. A permissive condition for an event is something that does not entail the event itself, but a (...) necessary condition for it. A ‘Possibilist Law’ is a kind of scientific law that predicts that in the absence of a necessary condition N, the event E is not possible. Both PE and PL are legitimate and neglected parts of scientific knowledge and are especially suitable for human sciences. (shrink)

Collected papers on philosophy of linguistics, sociolinguistics and language planning, including papers on the languages of African immigrants, language policy and planning in post-apartheid South Africa.

Dan Baras has recently argued for the claim that Theistic Mathematical Platonism fares no better than Mathematical Platonism with respect to explaining why our mathematical beliefs are correlated with mind-independent mathematical truths. In this paper I argue that, insofar as TMP provides a proximate or local explanation for this truth-tracking correlation whereas MP fails to offer any corresponding explanation, Baras’s claim that TMP fares no better than MP with respect to explaining this correlation is false.

This paper investigates the relationship between structural explanation and the New Mechanistic account of explanation. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to argue that some phenomena in the domain of fundamental physics, although mechanically brute, are structurally explained; and secondly, by elaborating on the contrast between SE and mechanistic explanation to better clarify some features of SE. Finally, this paper will argue that, notwithstanding their apparently antithetical character, SE and ME can be reconciled within a (...) unified account of general scientific explanation. (shrink)

Selective abduction is in contrast with creative abduction as well as Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE). There are two types of selective abduction: Either hypotheses are selected among new and conjectural hypotheses without any prior knowledge ( Pierce s' selective abduction), or the selection of the best hypotheses and explanations is among a large number of possible hypotheses and explanations already known (L. Magnani's selective abduction and G. Schurz's factual abduction). According to both views, as well as an (...) alternative view, which belongs to Dov M. Gabby and John Woods, selective abduction is different from inference to the best explanation. Schurz's factual abduction depends on all three sub-processes of inference, i.e.: colligation, observation, and judgment (c, o, and j); But Pierce's selective abduction, on the other hand, has only a third sub-process, i.e. judgment process (j), and therefore it cannot be regarded as a process of abductive epistemic inference. (shrink)

An important strand in philosophy of science takes scientific explanation to consist in the conveyance of some kind of information. Here I argue that this idea is also implicit in some core arguments of mechanists, some of whom are proponents of an ontic conception of explanation that might be thought inconsistent with it. 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. 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”. (shrink)

Gauss’s quadratic reciprocity theorem is among the most important results in the history of number theory. It’s also among the most mysterious: since its discovery in the late 18th century, mathematicians have regarded reciprocity as a deeply surprising fact in need of explanation. Intriguingly, though, there’s little agreement on how the theorem is best explained. Two quite different kinds of proof are most often praised as explanatory: an elementary argument that gives the theorem an intuitive geometric interpretation, due to (...) Gauss and Eisenstein, and a sophisticated proof using algebraic number theory, due to Hilbert. Philosophers have yet to look carefully at such explanatory disagreements in mathematics. I do so here. According to the view I defend, there are two important explanatory virtues—depth and transparency—which different proofs (and other potential explanations) possess to different degrees. Although not mutually exclusive in principle, the packages of features associated with the two stand in some tension with one another, so that very deep explanations are rarely transparent, and vice versa. After developing the theory of depth and transparency and applying it to the case of quadratic reciprocity, I draw some morals about the nature of mathematical explanation. (shrink)

An interview with Charles McCarty by Piotr Urbańczyk concerning mathematical explanation.

In the form of inference known as inference to the best explanation there are various ways to characterise what is meant by the best explanation. This paper considers a number of such characterisations including several based on confirmation measures and several based on coherence measures. The goal is to find a measure which adequately captures what is meant by 'best' and which also yields the truth with a high degree of probability. Computer simulations are used to show that (...) the overlap coherence measure achieves this goal, enabling the true explanation to be identified almost as often as an approach which simply selects the most probable explanation. Further advantages to this approach are also considered in the case where there is uncertainty in the prior probability distribution. (shrink)

We argue that explanations appealing to logical impossibilities are genuine explanations. Our defense is based on a certain picture of impossibility. Namely, that there are impossibilities and that the impossibilities have structure. Assuming this broad picture of impossibility we defend the genuineness of explanations that appeal to logical impossibilities against three objections. First, that such explanations are at odds with the perceived conceptual connection between explanation and counterfactual dependence. Second, that there are no genuinely contrastive why-questions that involve logical (...) impossibilities and, third, that explanations appealing to logical impossibilities rule nothing out. (shrink)

Biological processes are often explained by identifying the underlying mechanisms that generate a phenomenon of interest. I characterize a basic account of mechanistic explanation and then present three challenges to this account, illustrated with examples from molecular biology. The basic mechanistic account is insufficient for explaining nonsequential and nonlinear dynamic processes, is insufficient for explaining the inherently stochastic nature of many biological mechanisms, and fails to give a proper framework for analyzing organization. I suggest that biological processes are best (...) approached as a multidimensional gradient—with some processes being paradigmatic cases of mechanisms and some being marginal cases. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work has explored the distinction between causal and non-causal forms of explanation. In this literature, topological explanation is viewed as a clear example of the non-causal variety–it is claimed that topology lacks temporal information, which is necessary for causal structure. This paper explores the distinction between topological and causal forms of explanation and argues that this distinction is not as clear cut as the literature suggests. One reason for this is that some explanations involve both (...) topological and causal information. In these “borderline” cases scientists explain some outcome by appealing to the causal topology of the system of interest. These cases help clarify a type of topological explanation that is genuinely causal, but that differs from standard topological and interventionist accounts of explanation. (shrink)

In response to commentaries by Esa Díaz León, Jennifer Saul, and Ra- chel Sterken, I develop more fully my views on the role of structure in social and metaphysical explanation. Although I believe that social agency, quite generally, occurs within practices and structures, the relevance of structure depends on the sort of questions we are asking and what interventions we are considering. The emphasis on questions is also relevant in considering metaphysical and meta-metaphysical is- sues about realism with respect (...) to gender and race. I aim to demon- strate that tools we develop in the context of critical social theory can change the questions we ask, what forms of explanation are called for, and how we do philosophy. (shrink)

Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an.

One of biology's fundamental aims is to generate understanding of the living world around—and within—us. In this chapter, I aim to provide a relatively nonpartisan discussion of the nature of explanation in biology, grounded in widely shared philosophical views about scientific explanation. But this discussion also reflects what I think is important for philosophers and biologists alike to appreciate about successful scientific explanations, so some points will be controversial, at least among philosophers. I make three main points: (1) (...) causal relationships and broad patterns have often been granted importance to scientific explanations, and they are in fact both important; (2) some explanations in biology cite the components of or processes in systems that account for the systems’ features, whereas other explanations feature large-scale or structural causes that influence a system; and (3) there can be multiple different explanations of a given biological phenomenon, explanations that respond to different research aims and can thus be compatible with one another even when they may seem to disagree. (shrink)