Online research in philosophy

How are scientific explanations possible in ecology, given that there do not appear to be many—if any—ecological laws? To answer this question, I present and defend an account of scientific causal explanation in which ecological generalizations are explanatory if they are invariant rather than lawlike. An invariant generalization continues to hold or be valid under a special change—called an intervention—that changes the value of its variables. According to this account, causes are difference-makers that can be intervened upon to manipulate or control their effects. I apply the account to ecological generalizations to show that invariance under interventions as a criterion of explanatory relevance provides interesting interpretations for the explanatory status of many ecological generalizations. Thus, I argue that there could be causal explanations in ecology by generalizations that are not, in a strict sense, laws. I also address the issue of mechanistic explanations in ecology by arguing that invariance and modularity constitute such explanations.

Instances of explanatory reduction are often advocated on metaphysical grounds; given that the only real things in the world are subatomic particles and their interaction, we have to try to explain everything in terms of the laws of physics. In this paper, we show that explanatory reduction cannot be defended on metaphysical grounds. Nevertheless, indispensability arguments for reductive explanations can be developed, taking into account actual scientific practice and the role of epistemic interests. Reductive explanations might be indispensable to address some epistemic interest answering a specific explanation-seeking question in the most accurate, adequate and efficient way. Just like explanatory pluralists often advocate the indispensability of higher levels of explanation pointing at the pragmatic value of the explanatory information obtained on these higher levels, we argue that explanatory reduction—traditionally understood as the contender of pluralism—can be defended in a similar way. The pragmatic value reductionist, lower level explanations might have in the biomedical sciences and the social sciences is illustrated by some case studies.

Sometimes instances of perceived causation turn out to lack causal relata. The reasons may vary. Causation may display itself as prevention, or as omission, and in some cases causation occurs within such complex environments that few of the things we associate with causes and effects are true of them, etc. But even then, there may be causal explanations to be had. This suggests that the explanatory power of causal reports have other sources than the relation between cause and effect. In this paper it is argued that the causal mechanisms we allude to in explanations have relevant determinables other than the traditionally acknowledged ones. The traditional but in this aspect mistaken view of causation is to be blamed. Discernability, complexity of manifestation, originality, and even stability have often been overlooked. We know, that, in fact, heat is a constant attendant of flame; but what is the connexion between them, we have no room so much as to conjecture or imagine. (Hume 1777, VII. 2, 64).

This paper defends a unificationist theory of explanation. I first explore the notion of understanding entrenched by the unificationist. Then I present an overview of various kinds of causal statements and explanations. It is claimed that only genuine causal law statements have explanatory power. Finally, I attempt to fit causal explanations into the unificationist theory of explanation. In this way, I try to provide an account of how causal explanations provide understanding of the phenomena that they explain.

Deflationists about truth typically deny that truth is a causal-explanatory property. However, the now familiar 'success argument' attempts to show that truth plays an important causal-explanatory role in explanations of practical success. Deflationists have standardly responded that the truth predicate appears in such explanations merely as a logical device, and that therefore truth has not been shown to play a causal-explanatory role. I argue that if we accept Jackson and Pettit's account of causal explanations, the standard deflationist response is inconsistent, for on this account even logical properties can be causally explanatory. Therefore the deflationist should remain neutral as to whether truth is a causal-explanatory property, and focus instead on the claim that truth, if it is a property, is a merely logical one.

Explanations contribute to our understanding of the world byembedding phenomena into general nomic patterns that we recognize in the world. Manyof these patterns are, of course, causal ones, but the declaration as ``causal'' often fails to determinethe explanatory power of the pattern. More important is the systematization capacity and the empiricalcontent of the pattern or theory with respect to explanations. We can specify these parameters moreprecisely within the framework of the structuralist view of theories.

In a recent paper, Michael Levin argues that both statements reporting causal relations and causal explanatory statements are extensional. We show that his argument for the extensionality of causal explanatory statements fails to establish that conclusion. His claim that certain 'because' statements are elliptical for statements of what he terms the 'causal explanatory' form is unsubstantiated. The argument for the referential transparency of the allegedly explanatory form, regardless of whether it is a distinct explanatory form, fails because of scope problems. Finally, we argue that the apparent referential opacity of explanations, the attribution of certain kinds of properties to explanations, and our satisfaction with explanations in what appear to be disparate forms are best accounted for, not by the assumption of ellipticality of statements in various forms for statements in some inherently explanatory form, but rather by an account of explanation as a speech act, the success or failure of which may be affected by which of several co-referring expressions is employed.

Pluralism with respect to the structure of explanations of facts is not uncommon. Wesley Salmon, for instance, distinguished two types of explanation: causal explanations (which provide insight in the causes of the fact we want to explain) and unification explanations (which fit the explanandum into a unified world view). The pluralism which Salmon and others have defended is compatible with several positions about the exact relation between these two types of explanations. We distinguish four such positions, and argue in favour of one of them. We also compare our results with the views of some authors who have recently written on this subject.

Individualists claim that wide explanations in psychology are problematic. I argue that wide psychological explanations sometimes have greater explanatory power than individualistic explanations. The aspects of explanatory power I focus on are causal depth and theoretical appropriateness. Reflection on the depth and appropriateness of other wide explanations of behavior, such as evolutionary explanations, clarifies why wide psychological explanations sometimes have more causal depth and theoretical appropriateness than narrow psychological explanations. I also argue for the rejection of eliminative materialism.

In the literature on scientific explanation two types of pluralism are very common. The first concerns the distinction between explanations of singular facts and explanations of laws: there is a consensus that they have a different structure. The second concerns the distinction between causal explanations and uni.cation explanations: most people agree that both are useful and that their structure is different. In this article we argue for pluralism within the area of causal explanations: we claim that the structure of a causal explanation depends on the causal structure of the relevant fragment of the world and on the interests of the explainer.