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Makes a Difference

Review of Michael Strevens’ Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008

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Abstract

Michael Strevens has produced an ambitious and comprehensive new account of scientific explanation. This review discusses its main themes, focusing on regularity explanation and a number of methodological concerns.

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Notes

  1. This is in fact the first of two fundamental theorems. But the second (stated on p. 260) is similar in content.

  2. The term “mechanism” is used by Strevens to refer rather loosely to causal generalizations. There is no specific connection here with the debate over mechanisms in the philosophy of biology.

  3. This last clause underlies Strevens’ fundamental theorem. The explanation of an event is the explanation of the regularity, minus the basing generalization, as it were.

  4. It is not entirely clear what is involved in calling something an explanatory relevance relation. Presumably it means that an appeal to this kind of relation in the course of providing an explanation may enhance its explanatory power. However, this might be true of various logical relations as well, depending on the context.

  5. On this score see the somewhat heated yet highly illuminating exchange contained in: Strevens (2007), Woodward (2008) and Strevens (2008).

  6. The last part of the book is brief and more tentative, and I will skip it entirely here.

  7. Specifically, it is “microconstant” and “macroperiodic”, two properties of deterministic systems that, together, Strevens argues, ensure the propriety of a probabilistic explanation.

References

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  • Salmon WC (1984) Scientific explanation and the causal structure of the world. Princeton University Press, Princeton

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  • Strevens M (2003) Bigger than Chaos: understanding complexity through probabaility. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

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  1. The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 43 Jabotinski St., 91040, Jerusalem, Israel

    Arnon Levy

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  1. Arnon Levy
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Correspondence to Arnon Levy.

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Levy, A. Makes a Difference. Biol Philos 26, 459–467 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-010-9234-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-010-9234-2

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