Lewis's dilemma of explanation under indeterminism exposed and resolved

Mind 109 (433):39-66 (2000)
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Abstract

In a brief passage, David Lewis derives from quantum-theory a dilemma regarding the explanation of chance events which he tries to solve by first distinguishing plain from contrastive why-questions have answers. His brevity warrants elaboration and critique. I endorse his derivation, but I make a structural objection to his solution. Once a further distinction is drawn between different kinds of contrastive why-question, his solution can be modified and refined so as to go some way to meeting this objection. However, it cannot resist a deeper objection to the effect that chance events can be given contrastive explanations after all. The alternative solution to the dilemma that I recommend holds Lewis's conception of the 'essence of chance' to be illusory

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Philip Percival
Nottingham University

Citations of this work

Contrastive statistical explanation and causal heterogeneity.Jaakko Kuorikoski - 2012 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (3):435-452.
The problem of granularity for scientific explanation.David Kinney - 2019 - Dissertation, London School of Economics and Political Science (Lse)

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References found in this work

How the laws of physics lie.Nancy Cartwright - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Scientific Image.William Demopoulos & Bas C. van Fraassen - 1982 - Philosophical Review 91 (4):603.
A subjectivist’s guide to objective chance.David K. Lewis - 1980 - In Richard C. Jeffrey (ed.), Studies in Inductive Logic and Probability, Volume II. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 263-293.
Explanatory unification and the causal structure of the world.Philip Kitcher - 1989 - In Philip Kitcher & Wesley Salmon (eds.), Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 410-505.

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