This work addresses biological explanations and aims to provide a philosophical account which brings together logical-procedural and historical-processual aspects when considering molecular pathways. It is argued that, having molecular features as explananda, a particular non-classical logical language – Zsyntax – can be used to formally represent, in terms of logical theorems, types of molecular processes, and to grasp how we get from one molecular interaction to another, hence explaining why a given outcome occurs. Expressing types of molecular biology processes in (...) terms of the Zsyntax language allows us to represent causal interactions by taking into account their context-sensitivity, and amounts to partly reviving the spirit of the so-called received view of explanation – which aimed to capture scientific explanatory accounts in terms of their logical structure and their appealing to nomological relations. Such a partial revival is pursued by invoking here non-classical deductions and empirical generalisations, which are called to provide the epistemic norms to explain the behavior of molecular pathways. (shrink)

In a contribution to a symposium on “Causality in the Social Sciences,” Lewis Feuer remarks in passing that “Functionalism, in the form which Malinowski gave it, affirms that culture is an ‘organic unity’; it is the principle that in every culture, each custom, belief, and behavioral form ‘represents an indespensible part within a working whole.’” That culture is an integrated and organic unity is a view found quite often in the writings of Malinowski, though he does not maintain it with (...) full consistency. Sometimes he seems to say that a culture is made up of a number of grand institutions, each of which is an integrated unity, though the totality need not be. But whether affirmed or denied this thesis is not the doctrine, characteristic of almost every attempt made by Malinowski to explain cultural phenomena during the last quarter century of his life, which may be properly called “Malinowskian functionalism.” And that the doctrine cited by Feurer is sometimes formulated in such a way that the term “functional” or some variant is used, as in “culture is a functionally integrated organic unity,” makes no difference to my claim. I am not at all certain that the addition of the word “functionally” does anything for the view in question; it surely makes no difference to its scientific sterility. But that apart, the point I wish to make here is that a good many scholars who make references to Malinowski's functionalism have never bothered to discover just what in the world this is. They have been all too ready to cite the vague programmatic pronouncements in which Malinowski's writings abound, while seemingly oblivious to the fact that with rare exception every major attempt by Malinowski to account systematically for some kind of sociocultural phenomena reveals one and the same pattern of explanation. And it is this pattern alone which may be spoken of as Malinowski's method of functional analysis. (shrink)

These considerations on Carl G. Hempel's and Paul Oppenheim's lucid article “Studies in the Logic of Explanation'”—LE for short—are an attempt to exploit some of the considerable advances made there. I wish to show how these advances may be incorporated into a technique for the investigation of problems of the philosophy of science, which has been called discourse-analytic. This discipline consists essentially in a technique of examining actual texts provided by specialists, such as physicists, psychologists, historians, etc., the (...) task being to discover fundamental logical and semantical features in the discourses under investigation. I am preparing a book on historical explanation, which will contain such case studies of historical texts. (shrink)

This book about philosophical and methodological problems in psychoanalytic theory is surely one of the best pieces of literature on this subject of recent vintage. The author, a psychiatrist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, displays considerable logical skill and philosophical sophistication, in addition to the expected familiarity with the psychoanalytic literature. The major purport of the book is a logical and philosophical defense of the claim that psychoanalytic explanations of human behavior--if constructed with proper and adequate regard for (...) relevant clinical data--are methodologically sound and genuinely scientific. One useful and novel feature of Sherwood's argument is the particular type of illustrative case material which he employs: instead of mustering various bits and instances of behavior from large numbers and varieties of cases, Sherwood considers the psychiatric explanation actually given by Freud in one of his recorded clinical case histories--the famous "Karl Lorenz" or "rat man" case. Sherwood devotes two chapters to a detailed description of this case, and an analysis of the logic of Freud's explanations of the behavior presented therein. From the point of view of logical and methodological considerations, there is an obvious advantage in such an approach, for it enables the critic to avoid leveling charges against the theory which might originate simply from extracting portions of explanatory material from their proper context. Sherwood also includes a chapter of criticism of what he calls "the thesis of the separate domain"--the view that there are fundamental differences in the logic of explanations of human behavior, cognition, and other phenomena involving reasons and intentions on the one hand, and other forms of explanation characteristic of the physical sciences, on the other. Philosophically, this is the most mature chapter of the book, and will be of interest to philosophers of mind, as well as philosophers of science, particularly for its criticism of the views of R. S. Peters. Unfortunately, however, Sherwood's argument is not unmarred by serious flaws and deficiencies. These include a highly psychologistic analysis of the logic and structure of explanation whose subsequent use repeatedly involves the author in context-of-discovery vs. context-of-justification confusions. Moreover, an apparent lapse into a non-Humean account of causality in the second section of the fifth chapter leads Sherwood to an unfortunate petitio principii on the issue of causes vs. reasons. Sherwood's critical discussion of the classical "covering-law" model of scientific explanation in the penultimate chapter exhibits numerous failures to come to grips with the essential aspects of the Braithwaite-Hempel-Oppenheim theory. Finally, an important sin of omission: Sherwood completely ignores the highly germane and decisive issues raised by authors such as Nagel and Arthur Pap, who charge the theoretical concepts of psychoanalysis with lack of cognitive and empirical significance. In sum, this is a flawed but eminently worthwhile book in the philosophy of behavioral science.--H. P. K. (shrink)

To explain the phenomena in the world of our experience, to answer the question “why?” rather than only the question “what?”, is one of the foremost objectives of all rational inquiry; and especially, scientific research in its various branches strives to go beyond a mere description of its subject matter by providing an explanation of the phenomena it investigates. While there is rather general agreement about this chief objective of science, there exists considerable difference of opinion as to the (...) function and the essential characteristics of scientific explanation. In the present essay, an attempt will be made to shed some light on these issues by means of an elementary survey of the basic pattern of scientific explanation and a subsequent more rigorous analysis of the concept of law and of the logical structure of explanatory arguments. (shrink)

This paper is about the problem of explanation in anthropology. There are, broadly speaking, three theories of explanation, namely, the scientific theory, the historical theory, and finally what I have decided to call the phenomenological theory, after M. Natanson. The author argues that none of the three theories is adequate by itself to encompass the complex nature of anthropological science. The three theories correspond roughly to at least three different types of questions raised by anthropologists, and this being (...) the case the principle of methodological tolerance seems a natural and sensible principle to adopt. The paper also deals with the problem of reduction, i.e. the problem whether the three theories are different from and logically independent of one another. (shrink)

If one were to write a history of the philosophy of science in the spirit of T. S. Kuhn, one would have to consider the model of scientific explanation which Popper proposed and Hempel and Oppenheim developed to be one of the great paradigms of contemporary analytical philosophy of science. This analogue to the historically important paradigms of the individual sciences seems to me to be justifiable for the following reasons: first, the Hempel—Oppenheim model claims universal methodological validity; second, (...) discussions on the problem of explanation have centred on this model for some time; third, the recent cognitive progress in this field has been largely the result of the interrelation between criticism of this model on the one hand and its improvement and explication on the other hand; and lastly, this model stands for a particular comprehension of the problems and possibilities of science, a concept of quite important practical consequence. (shrink)

Ever since 1942, when Carl Hempel declared that historical events are explained by subsuming them under laws governing the occurrence of similar events, philosophers have debated the validity of explanations based on "covering laws." In _The Logic of Historical Explanation_, Clayton Roberts provides a key to understanding the role of covering laws in historical explanation. He does so by distinguishing between their use at the macro- and micro- levels, a distinction that no other scholar has made. Roberts contends (...) that the positivists were right to believe that covering laws are indispensable in historical explanations but wrong to think that these laws apply to macro-events. Similarly, the humanists were right to declare that historians do not explain the occurrence of macro-events by subsuming them under covering laws but wrong to deny the role of covering laws in tracing the course of events leading to the macro-event. Roberts resolves this debate by showing that, though useless in explaining macro-events, covering laws are indispensable in connecting the steps in an explanatory narrative. He then sets forth the logic of an explanatory narrative, explores the nature of rational explanation, and distinguishes the logic of historical interpretation from the logic of historical explanation. (shrink)

Retroduction -- Contextualized self-interpretations -- Causal mechanisms -- Ontology -- Logics -- Articulation.

I want to commend the article, “Studies in the Logic of Explanation,” Philosophy of Science, April, 1948, by Hempel and Oppenheim. However, there are two points in the article that have been treated in a manner incompatible with the general attitude taken by the authors and, I believe, they are mistaken in these two rather essential matters. The first concerns the relationship between emergents and prediction. The second concerns the relationship between “evidence” or sense data and law.

김재권은 여러 편의 논문을 통해 행위 설명에 대한 규범적 접근을 옹호해왔으며, 그의 최근 저작에서 심적 시뮬레이션에 기반한 행위 설명 이론을 내놓았다. 본 논문의 목적은 김재권의 이론을 비판적으로 검토하고 필자 자신의 대안적 규범적 접근의 기본 골자를 제시하는 것이다. 논문은 먼저 김재권의 입장을 가능한 한 분명하고 그럴듯한 형태로 제시하고, 그의 접근이 어떤 심각한 문제에 직면하는지 논의한다. 난점의 요지는 김재권 식의 접근 내에서는 참된 행위 설명과 거짓된 설명을 구분하기 위한 이론적 자원이 존재하지 않기에, 그의 이론은 행위 설명의 논리에 대한 적절한 분석일 수 없다는 (...) 것이다. 이어서 필자는 규범적 접근의 기본적 통찰을 어떻게 시뮬레이션을 통해 더 잘 포착할 수 있는지 제안한다. 필자의 접근은 이유는 행위의 원인이라는 인과주의자의 핵심 주장을 받아들인다. 그러나 그것은 또한 명시적으로 규범적이면서 시뮬레이션적인 접근인데, 필자의 접근에 의하면, 행위 설명에 내재하는 규범성은 이유를 이유이게끔 하는 규범성이며, 이 규범성은 심적 시뮬레이션에 의해 그럴듯하게 분석될 수 있다. (shrink)

Since the publication of Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim's ground-breaking work "Studies in the Logic of Explanation," the theory of explanation has remained a major topic in the philosophy of science. This valuable collection provides readers with the opportunity to study some of the classic essays on the theory of explanation along with the best examples of the most recent work being done on the topic. In addition to the original Hempel and Oppenheim paper, the volume (...) includes Scriven's critical reaction to it, Wilfrid Sellars's discussion of the problem of theoretical explanation, and pieces by Salmon, Railton, van Fraassen, Friedman, Kitcher, and Achinstein in which they demonstrate the vitality of the subject by extending the scope of the inquiry. (shrink)

Three-valued (strong-Kleene) modal logic provides the foundation for a new approach to formalizing causal explanation as a relation between partial situations. The approach makes fine-grained distinctions between aspects of events, even between aspects that are equivalent in classical logic. The framework can accommodate a variety of ontologies concerning the relata of causal explanation. I argue, however, for a tripartite ontology of objects corresponding to sentential nominals: facts, tropes (or facta or states of affairs), and situations (or (...) events). I axiomatize the relations and use canonical models to demonstrate completeness. (shrink)

Hegel accords great philosophical importance to Kant’s discussions of teleology and biology in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, and yet also disagrees with Kant’s central conclusions there. More specifically, Kant argues for a generally skeptical view of teleological explanation of living beings; Hegel responds that Kant should instead defend such explanation—and that the defense of teleology should lead Kant to different conclusions throughout his theoretical philosophy. I aim to avoid the sort of interpretive charity that would (...) begin with a currently popular philosophical view and then seek to find that view in historical texts. This approach would tend to obscure differences between what is popular now and the views of historical figures, as well as differences between different historical figures. And it would foreclose the possibility that studying history might reveal surprising philosophical advantages of views which are not popular today. I think that Kant and Hegel both provide compelling philosophical arguments for positions on natural teleology that are different from currently popular views, and different from one another. I do not make any attempt here at a final resolution of the issues at stake between Kant and Hegel, but aim rather to uncover and explain the strengths of the arguments on both sides. I begin with a brief look at Kant’s case for his more skeptical conclusions, and then consider at greater length Hegel’s response. I close with a brief discussion of the importance of this topic within Hegel’s broader metaphysics. (shrink)

In the course of his researches in electromagnetism and the kinetic theory of gases, James Clerk Maxwell gave some thought to the nature of science itself. His observations in this field are of interest today not only because they are his, but because they are still instructive. Maxwell's views are to be found in the many asides with which he enlivened his scientific papers and treatises and in the various articles and reviews which he prepared for more popular consumption. The (...) topics discussed bear on his own contributions to physics; they include the logic of dynamical explanation, the method of physical analogy, and the perennial question of action at a distance versus contiguity. In the present essay, I wish to discuss Maxwell's views on dynamical explanation. (shrink)

Recent approaches to the epistemology of logic, under the title of “anti-exceptionalism about logic”, explicitly adopt what is asserted to be the method of theory choice and the correct account of explanation in the sciences. Without embracing such a doctrine, but still keeping within a broad anti-exceptional trend, the current discussion proposes a contextual theory of explanation in logic, based on Bas van Fraassen’s framework of why-questions, which neither claims that logic is a science, (...) nor relies on the metaphysical assumption of a validity-phenomenon to give account of the methodology of logic. (shrink)

Investigates the contents of Schopenhauer's first book On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. This is devoted to the nature of explanation. It concludes that all events in the empirical world fall under one or more of four forms of explanation: scientific, mathematical, logical, and motivational. Since all meaningful empirical concepts are derived from experience, and no valid deductive argument can add to the content of its own premises, the only fully satisfactory empirical knowledge is (...) provided by direct perception. (shrink)

The topic of history-of-science explanation is first briefly introduced as a generally important one for the light it may shed on action theory, on the logic of discovery, and on philosophy''s relations with historiography of science, intellectual history, and the sociology of knowledge. Then some problems and some conclusions are formulated by reference to some recent relevant literature: a critical analysis of Laudan''s views on the role of normative evaluations in rational explanations occasions the result that one must (...) make aconceptual distinction between evaluations and explanations of belief, and that there are at leastthree subclasses of the latter, rational, critical, and theoretical; I then discuss the problem of whether explanations of discoveries are self-evidencing and predictive by focusing on views of Hempel and Nickles, and I attempt a formalization of some aspects of the problem. Finally, a more systematic and concrete analysis is undertaken by using as an example the explanation of Galileo''s rejection of space-proportionality, and it is argued that the historical explanation of scientific beliefs is a type of logical analysis. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the nature of explanations as given in both natural and social sciences. It discusses models of explanation adopted in natural and social sciences. The author also elaborates upon naturalistic and anti-naturalistic views and other types of explanations such as functional, purposive, etc in social science. The volume elaborates upon themes like bridge principle; functional explanation; purposive explanation; teleological explanation; prediction; methodological individualism; methodological collectivism; illocutionary redescription; principle of action; and (...) dispositional explanations, to understand whether the explanations given in the realm of social sciences are the same or different from the explanations that are given in the field of natural sciences. This introductory book is a must read for students and scholars of philosophy of science, logic, science and technology studies, social sciences, and philosophy in general. (shrink)

Hempel and Oppenheim have stated in Part III of their paper “Studies in the Logic of Explanation” [2] a set of conditions for deductive explanation. However, their analysis has come under damaging systematic criticisms in a recent paper by Eberle, Kaplan and Montague [1], The principal aim of the present paper is to review the Hempel-Oppenheim analysis and propose a strengthened version of it that avoids the recent criticisms.

Considerable attention recently has been paid to anti-exceptionalism about logic, the thesis that logic is more similar to the sciences in important respects than traditionally thought. One of AEL’s prominent claims is that logic’s methodology is similar to that of the recognised sciences, with part of this proposal being that logics provide explanations in some sense. However, insufficient attention has been given to what this proposal amounts to, and the challenges that arise in providing an account of (...) explanations in logic. This paper clarifies these challenges, and shows how the practice-based approach is best placed to meet them. (shrink)

In their article, Andrea Kern and Henrike Moll (2017) argue in support of a certain vision of shared/collective intentionality and its role in understanding our cognitive capacities. This vision is based on two aspects: a negative one, i.e. a theoretical diagnosis of the contemporary debate on shared/collective intentionality, and a positive one, referring to the proposals for shared/collective intentionality. As regards the negative aspect, the main thesis concerns the arbitrary assumptions underlying the whole debate on shared/collective intentionality. According to Kern (...) and Moll (2017), this assumption prevents us from capturing the transformative character of shared/collective intentionality and therefore the uniqueness of the human being. This paper is not so much a detailed criticism or discussion of said article, as rather an opportunity to formulate my own position in the colloquy with Kern and Mole’s position. This approach states that understanding the transformative character of SI/CI requires taking into account a broader approach to the constitution of the mind, in which, apart from the personal and the sub-personal level of explanation, there is also a third level of explanation  the interpersonal level of explanation. Thus understood, the ILE is a part of multi-level analysis and mechanism-based explanation, whereas shared/collective intentionality is one of the main mechanisms of the ILE. (shrink)

Introduction: Science and Common Sense Long before the beginnings of modern civilization, men ac- quired vast funds of information about their environment. ...

The principle of sufficient reason (PSR) says every fact has an explanation. But van Inwagen argues the PSR is false—otherwise all facts are necessary facts. Consider the conjunction of all contingent facts, which we can call the Big Contingent Conjunction. If every fact has an explanation, then presumably the Big Contingent Conjunction had better have an explanation too. But what fact could explain its truth—is the Big Contingent Conjunction explained by a necessary fact or a contingent one? (...) Trouble ensues either way. If the Big Contingent Conjunction is explained by a necessary fact, then it is hard to see why it should be contingent. (After all, if something follows from what is necessary, it too would seem to be necessary.) On the other hand, if the Big Contingent Conjunction is explained by a contingent fact, then the explanation appears circular since the explanans itself is among the facts it explains in the Big Contingent Conjunction. This paper explores an assumption of this argument rarely subjected to scrutiny—namely, the distribution principle, which asserts that if a fact explains a conjunction, then it explains each of its conjuncts. Though superficially plausible, close consideration of this principle reveals some reasons to reject it, potentially saving the PSR from van Inwagen’s challenge. (shrink)

Reconstructing Popper's research programme for the Human Sciences, Noretta Koertge (Inquiry, Vol. 18 [1975]) has given a deductive?nomological account of explanations of actions by means of a Rationality Principle. It is argued here that such a Rationality Principle is fundamentally redundant. Neither is it logically necessary in order to deduce a cognitive action?explanandum, nor can it be given a semantic non?empty interpretation, at least not within Koertge's own syllogism. Any attempt to save the Rationality Principle as unfalsifiablc but nevertheless indispensable (...) for action explanations is rejected in the light of possible alternative action explanations by empirical and therefore in principle falsifiable psychological laws. (shrink)