Philosophy of Science 80 (5):613-624 (2013)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
We reassess Woodward’s counterfactual account of explanation in relation to regularity explananda. Woodward presents an account of causal explanation. We argue, by using an explanation of Kleiber’s law to illustrate, that the account can also cover some noncausal explanations. This leads to a tension between the two key aspects of Woodward’s account: the counterfactual aspect and the causal aspect. We explore this tension and make a case for jettisoning the causal aspect as constitutive of explanatory power in connection with regularity explananda
|
Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1086/673899 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation.James Woodward - 2003 - Oxford University Press.
Making Things Happen. A Theory of Causal Explanation.Michael Strevens - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (1):233-249.
Dissecting Explanatory Power.Petri Ylikoski & Jaakko Kuorikoski - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 148 (2):201–219.
Explanatory Generalizations, Part I: A Counterfactual Account.James Woodward & Christopher Hitchcock - 2003 - Noûs 37 (1):1–24.
View all 7 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Explanatory Abstractions.Lina Jansson & Juha Saatsi - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (3):817–844.
Is There A Monist Theory of Causal and Non-Causal Explanations? The Counterfactual Theory of Scientific Explanation.Alexander Reutlinger - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (5):733-745.
On the ‘Indispensable Explanatory Role’ of Mathematics.Juha Saatsi - 2016 - Mind 125 (500):1045-1070.
Counterfactuals and Explanatory Pluralism.Kareem Khalifa, Gabriel Doble & Jared Millson - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4):1439-1460.
Explanation in Computational Neuroscience: Causal and Non-Causal.M. Chirimuuta - 2018 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (3):849-880.
View all 52 citations / Add more citations
Similar books and articles
High-Level Explanation and the Interventionist’s ‘Variables Problem’.L. R. Franklin-Hall - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (2):553-577.
Relevance, Not Invariance, Explanatoriness, Not Manipulability: Discussion of Woodward’s Views on Explanatory Relevance.Cyrille Imbert - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (5):625-636.
Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation.James Woodward - 2003 - Oxford University Press.
Ecological Explanation Between Manipulation and Mechanism Description.Viorel Pâslaru - 2009 - Philosophy of Science 76 (5):821-837.
Explanation and Understanding: An Alternative to Strevens’ D Epth.Angela Potochnik - 2011 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (1):29-38.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2014-01-12
Total views
152 ( #76,780 of 2,504,871 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
4 ( #170,306 of 2,504,871 )
2014-01-12
Total views
152 ( #76,780 of 2,504,871 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
4 ( #170,306 of 2,504,871 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads