In this paper we investigate how inference to the best explanation (IBE) works in engineering science, focussing on the context of malfunction explanation. While IBE has gotten a lot of attention in the philosophy of science literature, few, if any, philosophical work has focussed on IBE in engineering science practice. We first show that IBE in engineering science has a similar structure as IBE in other scientific domains in the sense that in both settings IBE hinges on the weighing of (...) explanatory virtues. We then proceed to show that, due to the intimate connection between explanation and redesign in engineering science, there is a further engineering domain-specific virtue in terms of which engineering malfunction explanations are evaluated, viz. the virtue of redesign utility. This virtue entails that the explanatory information offered by a malfunction explanation should be instrumental in predicting counterfactual dependencies in redesigned systems. We illustrate and elaborate these points in terms of a number of engineering examples, focussing in particular on the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447. Our extension of analyses of IBE and explanation to engineering science practice offers new insights by identifying a new explanatory virtue in malfunction explanation: redesign utility. (shrink)

What features will something have if it counts as an explanation? And will something count as an explanation if it has those features? In the second half of the 20th century, philosophers of science set for themselves the task of answering such questions, just as a priori conceptual analysis was generally falling out of favor. And as it did, most philosophers of science just moved on to more manageable questions about the varieties of explanation and discipline-specific scientific explanation. Often, such (...) shifts are sound strategies for problem-solving. But leaving fallow certain basic conceptual issues can also result in foundational debates. (shrink)

This book discusses the relationship between the philosophy of science and philosophy of engineering, and demonstrates how philosophers of engineering design as well as design researchers can benefit from the conceptual toolkit that the philosophy of science has to offer. In this regard, it employs conceptual tools from the philosophical literature on scientific explanation to address key issues in engineering design and philosophy of engineering design. Specifically, the book focuses on assessing the explanatory value of function ascriptions used in engineering (...) design and philosophy of technical functions; on elaborating the structure of explanation in engineering design; on assessing the role and value of design representations in engineering design and philosophy thereof; and on elaborating means for the testing of design methods. Presenting a novel and effective approach to tackling key issues in the field, philosophers of engineering and design alike will greatly benefit from this book. (shrink)

In this paper I address the current debate on ontic versus epistemic conceptualizations of mechanistic explanation in the mechanisms literature. Illari recently argued that good explanations are subject to both ontic and epistemic constraints: they must describe mechanisms in the world in such fashion that they provide understanding of their workings. Elaborating upon Illari’s ‘integration’ account, I argue that causal role function discovery of mechanisms and their components is an epistemic prerequisite for achieving these two aims. This analysis extends Illari’s (...) account in important ways, putting more pressure on ontic readings of mechanistic explanation and providing an answer to the question how ontic and epistemic constraints on mechanistic explanation are related. I argue these point in terms of cases on memory research drawn from neuroscience and research on extinct neurogenetic mechanisms from early nervous systems biology. (shrink)

In this paper I apply the mechanistic account of explanation to engineering science. I discuss two ways in which this extension offers further development of the mechanistic view. First, functional individuation of mechanisms in engineering science proceeds by means of two distinct sub types of role function, behavior function and effect function, rather than role function simpliciter. Second, it offers refined assessment of the explanatory power of mechanistic explanations. It is argued that in the context of malfunction explanations of technical (...) systems, two key desiderata for mechanistic explanations, ‘completeness and specificity’ and ‘abstraction’, pull in opposite directions. I elaborate a novel explanatory desideratum to accommodate this explanatory context, dubbed ‘local specificity and global abstraction’, and further argue that it also holds for mechanistic explanations of malfunctions in the biological domain. The overall result is empirically-informed understanding of mechanistic explanation in engineering science, thus contributing to the ongoing project of understanding mechanistic explanation in novel or relatively unexplored domains. I illustrate these claims in terms of reverse engineering and malfunction explanations in engineering science. (shrink)

Current philosophical theorizing about technical functions is mainly focused on specifying conditions under which agents are justified in ascribing functions to technical artifacts. Yet, assessing the precise explanatory relevance of such function ascriptions is, by and large, a neglected topic in the philosophy of technical artifacts and technical functions. We assess the explanatory utility of ascriptions of technical functions in the following three explanation-seeking contexts: why was artifact x produced?, why does artifact x not have the expected capacity to ϕ?, (...) how does artifact x realize its capacity to ϕ? We argue that while function ascriptions serve a mere heuristic role in the first context, they have substantial explanatory leverage in the second and third context. In addition, we assess the relevance of function ascriptions in the context of engineering redesign. Here, function ascriptions also play a relevant role: they enable normative statements of the sort that component b functions better than component a. We unpack these claims by considering philosophical theories of technical functions, in particular the ICE theory, and engineering work on function ascription and explanation. We close the paper by relating our analysis to current debates on the explanatory power of mechanistic vis-à-vis functional explanations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper I offer an interventionist perspective on the explanatory structure and explanatory power of dynamical models in cognitive science: I argue that some “pure” dynamical models – ones that do not refer to mechanisms at all – in cognitive science are “contextualized causal models” and that this explanatory structure gives such models genuine explanatory power. I contrast this view with several other perspectives on the explanatory power of “pure” dynamical models. One of the main results is that dynamical (...) models need not refer to underlying mechanisms in order to be explanatory. I defend and illustrate this position in terms of dynamical models of the A-not-B error in developmental psychology as elaborated by Thelen and colleagues, and dynamical models of unintentional interpersonal coordination developed by Richardson and colleagues. (shrink)

This paper adds to the philosophical literature on mechanistic explanation by elaborating two related explanatory functions of idealisation in mechanistic models. The first function involves explaining the presence of structural/organizational features of mechanisms by reference to their role as difference-makers for performance requirements. The second involves tracking counterfactual dependency relations between features of mechanisms and features of mechanistic explanandum phenomena. To make these functions salient, we relate our discussion to an exemplar from systems biological research on the mechanism for countering (...) heat shock—the heat shock response system—in Escherichia coli bacteria. This research also reinforces a more general lesson: ontic constraint accounts in the literature on mechanistic explanation provide insufficiently informative normative appraisals of mechanistic models. We close by outlining an alternative view on the explanatory norms governing mechanistic representation. (shrink)

In the recent literature on explanation in biology, increasing attention is being paid to the connection between design explanation and mechanistic explanation, viz. the role of design principles and heuristics for mechanism discovery and mechanistic explanation. In this paper we extend the connection between design explanation and mechanism discovery by prizing apart two different types of design explanation and by elaborating novel heuristics that one specific type offers for mechanism discovery across species. We illustrate our claims in terms of two (...) lines of biological research on the biological advantages of organismal traits, one on the eye-size of giant squid, the other on foraging habits of specific bat species. We argue that this research illustrates useful heuristics for mechanism discovery across species, viz. reasoning strategies to infer likely mechanisms for a certain biological role based on assessments of the environmental conditions in which the role is performed efficiently and less or in-efficiently. We bring out the novel features of our analysis in terms of a comparison with mechanistic approaches to mechanism discovery, amongst which graph-theoretical ones, and by comparing the different types of design explanation and the discovery heuristics they support. (shrink)

In engineering design research different models of functional decomposition are advanced side-by-side. In this paper I explain and validate this co-existence of models in terms of the Kuhnian thesis of methodological incommensurability. I advance this analysis in terms of the thesis’ construal of (non-algorithmic) theory choice in terms of values, expanding this notion to the engineering domain. I further argue that the (by some) implicated threat of the thesis to rational theory choice has no force in the functional decomposition case: (...) co-existence of different models of functional decomposition is rational from an instrumental point of view. My explanation covers cases in which different models are advanced as means for the same objective. Such cases cannot be explicated with the explanatory construct of variety in objectives, as advanced in other analyses of co-existing conceptualizations in engineering. (shrink)

In this paper we assess the explanatory role of idealizations in ‘design explanations’, a type of functional explanation used in biology. In design explanations, idealizations highlight which factors make a difference to phenomena to be explained: hypothetical, idealized, organisms are invoked to make salient which traits of extant organisms make a difference to organismal fitness. This result negates the view that idealizations serve only pragmatic benefits, and complements the view that idealizations highlight factors that do not make a difference. This (...) analysis in particular strengthens the perspective that idealizations are means to highlight difference making factors, and identifies a novel, more direct role for idealizations in doing so. It thus offers a novel argument why in some explanatory contexts idealizations are in-eliminable. (shrink)

In this paper we chart epistemological similarities between shared function talk in biology and the engineering sciences, focusing on the notions of biological advantage function and technical advantage function. We start by showing that biological advantage function ascriptions are common in biology and that technical advantage function ascriptions are common in engineering science. We then proceed to show that these ascriptions have a very similar structure and that their epistemic value also is similar: both biological advantage function and technical advantage (...) function ascriptions provide the means to answer what-would-happen-if questions. We develop and illustrate our claims with four case studies: two from biology, and two from engineering design research. Our results offer new insights into a relatively neglected issue in both philosophy of biology and technology, viz. assessing the explanatory and predictive utility of function ascriptions. (shrink)

Analysis of the adequacy of engineering design methods, as well as analysis of the utility of concepts of function often invoked in these methods, is a neglected topic in both philosophy of technology and in engineering proper. In this paper, I present an approach—dubbed an explanationist perspective—for assessing the adequacy of function-based design methods. Engineering design is often intertwined with explanation, for instance, in reverse engineering and subsequent redesign, knowledge base-assisted designing, and diagnostic reasoning. I argue that the presented approach (...) is useful for validating function-based design methods with respect to their explanatory elements and that it supports assessment of the explanatory and design utility of “function”, and the different conceptualizations thereof, as used in such engineering design methods. I deploy two key desiderata from the explanation literature to assess the viability of function-based design methods: explanatorily relevant difference-making factors and counterfactual understanding defined in terms of what-if-things-had-been-different questions. I explicate the approach and its merits in terms of two case studies drawn from the engineering functional modeling literature: reverse engineering and redesign and malfunction analysis. I close the paper by discussing ramifications of the presented approach for the philosophy of design and the philosophy of explanation. (shrink)

In this paper, we describe the conceptual elusiveness of the notion of function as used in engineering practice. We argue that it should be accepted as an ambiguous notion, and then review philosophical argumentations in which engineering functions occur in order to identify the consequences of this ambiguity. Function is a key notion in engineering, yet is used by engineers systematically in a variety of meanings. First, we demonstrate that this ambiguous use is rational for engineers by considering the role (...) of functions in design methods and by analysing the ambiguity in terms of Kuhn’s notion of methodological incommensurability. Second, we discuss ontological and mereological analyses of engineering functions and describe a proof that subfunctions cannot formally be taken as parts of the functions they decompose. Engineering functions figure sometimes in philosophical work and are then typically taken as having an unambiguous, well-defined meaning. Finally, we therefore revisit work in philosophy of technology on the dual nature of technical artefacts, in philosophy of science on functional and mechanistic explanations, and in philosophy of biology on biological functions, and explore the consequences of the fact that engineering function is an ambiguous notion. It is argued that one of these consequences may be that also the notion of biological function has an ambiguous meaning. (shrink)

In this paper we consider mechanistic explanations for biologic malfunctions. Drawing on Lipton’s work on difference making, we offer three reasons why one should distinguish i) mechanistic features that only make a difference to the malfunction one aims to explain, from ii) features that make a difference to both the malfunction and normal functioning. Recognition of the distinction is important for a) repair purposes, b) mechanism discovery, and c) understanding. This analysis extends current mechanistic thinking, which fails to appreciate the (...) distinction. We illustrate our contribution with a case on sleeping disorders as arising from disruptions of circadian rhythms. (shrink)

JOHANNES ROESSLER & NAOMI EILAN (Eds.)Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003ISBN 0199245622 (pbk, 415 pages, $39.95)In The Principles of Psychology, William James presents an interesting case of a ‘...

Our lives are increasingly intertwined with the digital realm, and with new technology, new ethical problems emerge. The academic field that addresses these problems—which we tentatively call ‘digital ethics’—can be an important intellectual resource for policy making and regulation. This is why it is important to understand how the new ethical challenges of a digital society are being met by academic research. We have undertaken a scientometric analysis to arrive at a better understanding of the nature, scope and dynamics of (...) the field of digital ethics. Our approach in this paper shows how the field of digital ethics is distributed over various academic disciplines. By first having experts select a collection of keywords central to digital ethics, we have generated a dataset of articles discussing these issues. This approach allows us to generate a scientometric visualisation of the field of digital ethics, without being constrained by any preconceived definitions of academic disciplines. We have first of all found that the number of publications pertaining to digital ethics is exponentially increasing. We furthermore established that whereas one may expect digital ethics to be a species of ethics, we in fact found that the various questions pertaining to digital ethics are predominantly being discussed in computer science, law and biomedical science. It is in these fields, more than in the independent field of ethics, that ethical discourse is being developed around concrete and often technical issues. Moreover, it appears that some important ethical values are very prominent in one field (e.g., autonomy in medical science), while being almost absent in others. We conclude that to get a thorough understanding of, and grip on, all the hard ethical questions of a digital society, ethicists, policy makers and legal scholars will need to familiarize themselves with the concrete and practical work that is being done across a range of different scientific fields to deal with these questions. (shrink)

This article seeks to interpret the phrase Πάτερ, ημων ο εν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς in the invocation of the Lord’s Prayer in the light of Ewe-Ghanaian cosmology. The article employs a combination of the historical-critical and indigenous mother tongue biblical hermeneutical approaches to explore the implication of the invocation for Ewe-Ghanaian Christian spirituality today. The article firstly discusses the various theological and hermeneutical positions of the invocation in dialogue with Ewe-Ghanaian concept of God and the plurality of his dwelling place. The (...) article argues that Matthew’s use of οὐρανοῖς to suggest a plurality in God’s dwelling place resonates with Ewe cosmology, where it is believed that there are seven states of existence and that Mawugã, the Supreme Being, dwells in the first – the absolute state. Thus God exists in ‘seven heavens’ in Ewe cosmology, with the highest heaven being the eternal state of abode. On the other hand, the inclusive interpretation of the fatherhood of God in Ewe cosmology is discontinuous with the exclusive interpretation in the works of the church fathers such as Cyprian, Origen, Gregory of Nissa, Augustine and Clement of Alexandria. This hermeneutical position, the article observes, was responsible for the theological tensions that characterised the encounter between missionary Christianity and Ewe indigenous religion in the middle of the 19th century. However, the introduction of social services as evangelisation strategy, the legacy of the Ewe Bible and liturgy and the handing over of the Ewe church to the indigenous coworkers may have contributed to a large extent in ensuring religious tolerance among followers of the two religions. Today, Ewe-Ghanaian popular Christianity has shifted from its apologetic stance to a more liberal stance and employs indigenous religious and cultural categories in theologising.Contribution: Matthew’s rendition of the invocation of the Lord’s Prayer in the context of Ewe-Ghanaian cosmology is the focus of this article. The article forms part of the researcher’s contribution to the academic knowledge on the Lord’s Prayer and inspires the use of mother tongue biblical hermeneutics in the development of theological materials for the Ewe-Ghanaian Christian communities in Ghana and Togo. (shrink)

Ethnicity reasoning offers one way of looking at social identity in the letter to the Hebrews. The context of socio-economic abuse and hardships of the audience creates a situation in which ethnicity in social identity becomes an important issue for the author of Hebrews to address. This article is a social-scientific study which explores how the author establishes the ethnic identity of the audience as people of God. While this ethnic identity indicates the more privileged position the readers occupy in (...) relation to the benefits of God accessible to them, it also provides the author with the appropriate social institutions and scripts by which his demand for appropriate response to God and the Christian group becomes appreciable and compelling. The article involves the definition of social-scientific criticism, ethnicity and social identity, and discusses the social context of the letter to the Hebrews. It then explains how some social scripts within specific ethnic institutions give meaning to the demands the author makes from his readers. (shrink)

This article presents how Paul, in 1 Thessalonians, executes the process of the formation of the Thessalonian community. Using the sociological concept of symbolic boundaries, it is argued that the resources – the kerygmatic narrative, the local narratives, and the ethical norms – that Paul incorporates into the letter take an essential role to promote the converts to derive a cooperative identity from the community to which they belong and to strengthen the distinction between them and the larger society. By (...) providing internal consensus and external separation, the resources serve to construct and maintain the Thessalonian community that is internally united and externally distinct. (shrink)

The Akan people of Ghana have concepts of ethnicity and social identity which are similar to those found in the Mediterranean world, which find expression in the issues addressed in the letter to the Hebrews. This similarity makes the reading of Hebrews in light of Akan ethnicity and social identity possible, giving one the expected meaning from the perspective of those concepts as within the original context of the audience. This article therefore discusses some theories on ethnicity and social identity (...) as well as the Akan people of Ghana and their concepts of ethnicity and social identity. It further explains the social context of the letter of Hebrews against which Hebrews is then read in light of Akan ethnicity and social identity. The focus of this reading is on how the ethnic identity of the readers presented in Hebrews enhances the social identity of the readers and provides the means by which the author’s appeal to his readers for their faithfulness to God becomes meaningful and urgent. (shrink)

From the 1960s, African theologians sought to decolonise biblical scholarship, calling for a hermeneutical approach that pays attention to the African sociocultural context – inculturation. One of the undergirding principles of inculturation is that there are African sociocultural questions that the Bible can address through the appropriate interpretative methodology. Thus, this culminated in the application of inculturation on different levels. Similarly, an analysis of Akan aphorisms – the anthology of valuable data on Akan anthropology and communitarian egalitarianism – and the (...) Johannine theology of unity reveals that there are sociocultural maladies that require inculturation. Consequently, the study employed Ukpong’s inculturation hermeneutics to read the Johannine unity ideation because it facilitates the cross-pollination of ideas – the Johannine unity ideation to critique the Akan culture and the conceptualisation of unity in Akan proverbial lore to enrich the understanding of the Johannine theology of unity. The findings indicated that Akan unity ideation receives its impetus from personal and communal benefits, making sustainability impossible without them. Additionally, it contravenes the tenets of Akan communalism and anthropology. Furthermore, it revealed that Christian unity is grounded on replicating the divine community; therefore, it can fill the lacunae in the Akan concept. Finally, it established that the culture enriches the text.Contribution: Given that this article is an interactive engagement between the Johannine and Akan concepts of unity, it contributes to the ongoing discussions on contextual theology – the inculturation of the New Testament in the African context. Furthermore, it contributes to the discussions on Akan communalism. (shrink)

Both the Johannine and Akan cultures are described in scholarly literature as collectivistic communities that value love as a communal value. Nonetheless, a scholarly analysis of the Akan concept reveals that Akan proverbial tradition promotes love motivated by the expectation of reciprocation. Thus, the article aimed to provide a biblical response to these challenges for Akan Christians, who hold love as both a traditional and theological value. Consequently, the study employed Gatti’s dialogic hermeneutics because it encourages engagement between text and (...) culture, viewing them as dialogue partners from which a call to action emanates directed at the interpreter’s context. Even though the Akan concept relates love to sacrifice, forgiveness and reciprocity, it promotes conditional love, thereby diminishing its concept of love-motivated sacrifices and reciprocity. By incarnating the concept of love that Jesus promotes and embodies in John, Akan Christians can establish a culture that reflects the community of God, proscribing conditional love and prescribing utmost and greater love – godly selfless and reciprocal love. In addition, it makes love the substratum of functional unity and interpersonal relationships. Ultimately, it makes love a divine command for the community of believers. Contribution: This article engages the Johannine and the Akan ideations of love through dialogic hermeneutics and, as such, contributes to African biblical hermeneutics and the ongoing discussions on the inculturation of the New Testament within the African context. (shrink)

This article presents a narratological reading of the Gospel of Mark with special attention given to the role, function and rhetorical impact of point of view. It is argued that through the use of ‘witnesses’ ranging from the omniscient narrator, to the character God, to the Old Testament Scriptures, the author of Mark presents a point of view that his implied reader would find difficult to counter. In addition to this, the article demonstrates that the motifs of allegiance, misunderstanding and (...) opposition in the Second Gospel are almost entirely confined to the adoption or rejection of the point of view being advocated for by the author of Mark. In the end, it is shown that only in the death of Jesus on the cross and the subsequent ‘centurion’s confession’ are the motifs resolved and is the point of view of Mark accepted by a human character. (shrink)

Globalisation develops at a staggering pace that envelopes and infiltrates local South African communities in various ways. Through technology a person can have access to anything today. Should the church try to keep up, or compete with such a reality? This article aims to encourage the church to develop a responsible missional character, which embraces the opportunities globalisation offers – to be a participative forum in a community comprising of more than religious people. Through re-evaluating the church’s missional intent, by (...) shifting the paradigm away from self-centred outcomes, the church should contribute to such a community’s articulation of faith. (shrink)

This article offers a critique of the contemporary Contemplative Tradition’s view of spiritual transformation from the lens of the universally accepted letters of Paul. The article argues that contemporary contemplatives, especially Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, differ from Paul in three principle areas. Firstly, whereas Paul’s concept of transformation is based largely on objective realities, representatives of the Contemplative Tradition tend to focus on subjective realities. Secondly, contemporary contemplatives view transformation as coming as one imitates the life of Christ, his (...) daily disciplines and activities, whereas Paul’s view centres on the death of Christ as foundational to the Christian’s identity and thus vital to the way they live out their faith. Finally, the cornerstone of the contemporary Contemplative Tradition’s view of spiritual transformation is the belief that the essential means by which transformation takes place is engagement in the spiritual disciplines. It is argued that many of the activities that are denominated as ‘spiritual disciplines’ are not in fact ‘transformative’ activities, and thus do not fit the category of spiritual disciplines. Furthermore, this study insists that Paul seldom links the practice of the disciplines with the means of transformation, offering instead five examples of specific means of transformation that flow out of Paul’s accepted letters. (shrink)

This article interprets the logos Christology in the fourth gospel within Ewe-Ghanaian cosmic setting. The article employs a combination of the exegetical and mother tongue biblical hermeneutics as its methodologies. The article compares the concept of the logos in John 1:1–5, 14 with a similar concept in Ewe cosmology with the aim of finding their points of convergence and divergence. The article also identifies linguistic and theological gaps in the Ewe rendition of John 1:1–5, 14 and proposes a new translation (...) that addresses it. A translation of the logos in Ewe cosmic perspective renders the term nyagbe, the intelligible word which dwells with the female pair of Sogbe-Lisa and manifests itself from the absolute state of existence [ logo ] to the embodied state [ logosu ]. When nyagbe journeyed from the eternal state of existence to the embodied state of existence, it manifests itself at five different levels of existence until it reaches the final state where humans exist. Although believed to be the epitome of all creation, human beings are at the same time described as being at the shore of ignorance and therefore must continually climb the ladder of knowledge in order to free themselves from it. It is for this reason that humans constantly petition the cosmic forces for their salvation. The article therefore, identifies a soteriological gap created in the Ewe soteriology and concludes that the only soteriological response to the Ewe cosmic cry for deliverance from the state of ignorance is the logos incarnate in John 1:14. Contribution: The article contributes to the academic knowledge on the logos Christology in the prologue of the fourth gospel (John 1:1–5, 14), specifically in the use of mother tongue in biblical hermeneutics in Africa. (shrink)