Results for ' Explanation'

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  1.  53
    The creation, discovery, view: Towards a possible explanation of quantum reality.Towards A. Possible Explanation Of Quantum - 1999 - In Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara, Language, Quantum, Music. Springer. pp. 105.
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  2. Kazem sadegh-Zadeh.A. Pragmatic Concept of Causal Explanation - 1984 - In Lennart Nordenfelt & B. Ingemar B. Lindahl, Health, Disease, and Causal Explanations in Medicine. Reidel. pp. 201.
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  3. Cognition and explanation.Herbert A. Simon, Discovering Explanations, Clark Glymour, Andy Clark, Twisted Tales, Alison Gopnik & Explanation as Orgasm - 1998 - Cognition 8 (1).
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  4. Against the sociology of art.Aesthetic Versus Sociological & Explanations of Art Activities - 2002 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 32 (2):206-218.
  5. pp. x+ 82, S6. 00 paper (210.50 hardback).Historical Explanation Reconsidered - 1985 - Philosophical Investigations 8 (1).
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  6. Mechanistic explanation without the ontic conception.Cory Wright - 2012 - European Journal of Philosophy of Science 2 (3):375-394.
    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, (...)
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  7. Explanation and invariance in the special sciences.James Woodward - 2000 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (2):197-254.
    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 (...)
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  8. Nancy S. Jecker.Donnie J. Self & Gender-Based Explanations - 1994 - Contemporary Issues in Bioethics 16:58.
  9. Mathematical Explanation: A Pythagorean Proposal.Sam Baron - 2024 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 75 (3):663-685.
    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 (...)
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  10. Why a right to explanation of automated decision-making does not exist in the General Data Protection Regulation.Sandra Wachter, Brent Mittelstadt & Luciano Floridi - 2017 - International Data Privacy Law 1 (2):76-99.
    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 (...)
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  11. Mechanistic Explanation: Integrating the Ontic and Epistemic.Phyllis Illari - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (2):237-255.
    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 (...)
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  12. Contrastive Explanation.Peter Lipton - 1990 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 27:247-266.
    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 (...)
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  13. Grounding, Explanation, and the Limit of Internality.Jon Erling Litland - 2015 - Philosophical Review 124 (4):481-532.
    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 (...)
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  14. Mechanistic explanation: asymmetry lost.Samuel Schindler - 2013 - In Dennis Dieks & Vassilios Karakostas, Recent Progress in Philosophy of Science: Perspectives and Foundational Problems. Springer.
    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 (...)
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  15. Explanation in two dimensions: Diagrams and biological explanation.Laura Perini - 2005 - Biology and Philosophy 20 (2-3):257-269.
    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 (...)
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  16. Explanation and Understanding.von Wright Georg Henrik - 1971 - London, England: Routledge.
    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 (...)
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  17.  16
    The Explanation of Social Action.John Levi Martin - 2011 - Oup Usa.
    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.
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  18. Explanation by induction?Miguel Hoeltje, Benjamin Schnieder & Alex Steinberg - 2013 - Synthese 190 (3):509-524.
    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.
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  19. Grounding, scientific explanation, and Humean laws.Marc Lange - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 164 (1):255-261.
    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 (...)
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  20. Putting explanation back into “inference to the best explanation”.Marc Lange - 2022 - Noûs 56 (1):84-109.
    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 (...)
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  21. Explanation in dynamical cognitive science.Joel Walmsley - 2008 - Minds and Machines 18 (3):331-348.
    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 (...)
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  22. Explanation, Extrapolation, and Existence.Stephen Yablo - 2012 - Mind 121 (484):1007-1029.
    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 (...)
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  23. Inaugurating Understanding or Repackaging Explanation?Kareem Khalifa - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (1):15-37.
    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.
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  24. Teleology beyond explanation.Sehrang Joo, Sami R. Yousif & Joshua Knobe - 2021 - Mind and Language 38 (1):20-41.
    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 (...)
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  25. Essence, Explanation, and Modality.Michael Wallner & Anand Vaidya - 2020 - Philosophy 95 (4):419-445.
    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 (...)
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  26.  72
    Mathematical Explanation in Practice.Ellen Lehet - 2021 - Axiomathes 31 (5):553-574.
    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 (...)
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  27. Mathematical Explanation beyond Explanatory Proof.William D’Alessandro - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (2):581-603.
    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 (...)
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  28. Knowledge, Explanation, and Motivating Reasons.Dustin Locke - 2015 - American Philosophical Quarterly 52:215-232.
    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 (...)
     
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  29. Peter Lipton.Alien Abduction, Inference To & Best Explanation - 2007 - Episteme 7:239.
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  30. Scientific explanation in quantum theory.Rob Clifton - unknown
    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 (...)
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  31.  89
    Functional explanation in mathematics.Matthew Inglis & Juan Pablo Mejía Ramos - 2019 - Synthese 198 (26):6369-6392.
    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 (...)
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  32. Explanation in classical population genetics.Anya Plutynski - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):1201-1214.
    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 (...)
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  33. Optimisation and mathematical explanation: doing the Lévy Walk.Sam Baron - 2014 - Synthese 191 (3).
    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.
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  34. Mechanism or Bust? Explanation in Psychology.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (4):1037-1059.
    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 (...)
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  35. Explanation and demonstration in the Haller-Wolff debate.Karen Detlefsen - 2006 - In Justin E. H. Smith, The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
    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 (...)
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  36. Possibilist Explanation: Explaining How-Possibly Through Laws.Gustavo A. Castañon - 2019 - Erkenntnis 86 (4):835-852.
    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 (...)
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  37.  13
    Indeterminacy and explanation in linguistic inquiry: contentious papers 2012-2018.Jon Orman - 2022 - [Hong Kong]: The International Association for the Integrational Study of Language and Communication. Edited by David W. Bade, Joshua Nash & Adrian Pablé.
    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.
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  38.  35
    Theism, Explanation, and Mathematical Platonism.C. P. Ruloff - 2020 - Philosophia Christi 22 (2):325-334.
    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.
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  39. Mechanisms meet structural explanation.Laura Felline - 2018 - Synthese 195 (1):99-114.
    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 (...)
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  40. Selective Abduction in the Selection of Hypotheses and its Relationship with Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE).Seyed Ahmad Mirsanei - 2022 - Analytic Philosophy 19 (41):325-344.
    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 (...)
     
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  41. Information and explanation: an inconsistent triad and solution.Mark Povich - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (2):1-17.
    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 (...)
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  42. Proving Quadratic Reciprocity: Explanation, Disagreement, Transparency and Depth.William D’Alessandro - 2020 - Synthese (9):1-44.
    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 (...)
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  43.  57
    What are the limits of mathematical explanation? Interview with Charles McCarty by Piotr Urbańczyk.David Charles McCarty & Piotr Urbańczyk - 2016 - Zagadnienia Filozoficzne W Nauce 60:119-137.
    An interview with Charles McCarty by Piotr Urbańczyk concerning mathematical explanation.
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  44. Inference to the best explanation: does it track truth?David H. Glass - 2012 - Synthese 185 (3):411-427.
    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 (...)
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  45. Explanation impossible.Sam Baron & Mark Colyvan - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (2):559-576.
    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 (...)
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  46.  82
    Mechanistic Explanation of Biological Processes.Derek John Skillings - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (5):1139-1151.
    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 (...)
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  47.  96
    Distinguishing topological and causal explanation.Lauren N. Ross - 2020 - Synthese 198 (10):9803-9820.
    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 (...)
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  48. Social Explanation: Structures, Stories, and Ontology. A Reply to Díaz León, Saul, and Sterken.Sally Haslanger - 2018 - Disputatio 10 (50):245-273.
    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 (...)
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  49. (1 other version)Reductive explanation and the "explanatory gap".Peter Carruthers - 2004 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (2):153-174.
    Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an.
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  50. What Constitutes an Explanation in Biology?Angela Potochnik - 2019 - In Kostas Kampourakis & Tobias Uller, Philosophy of Science for Biologists. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
    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) (...)
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