A conjunction of two hypotheses may provide a better explanation than either one of them individually, even if each already provides a good explanation on its own. An appropriate measure of explanatory power should reflect this, but none of the measures discussed in the literature do so because they only consider how much an explanatory hypothesis reduces our surprise at the evidence – which is problematic. This chapter introduces and defends a class of coherentist measures of explanatory power, and shows (...) that one particular such measure that combines different intuitions underlying the epistemological notion of coherence overcomes the aforementioned problems of surprise reduction measures. (shrink)

Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) advises reasoners to infer exactly one explanation. This uniqueness claim apparently binds us when it comes to “conjunctive explanations,” distinct explanations that are nonetheless explanatorily better together than apart. To confront this worry, explanationists qualify their statement of IBE, stipulating that this inference form only adjudicates between competing hypotheses. However, a closer look into the nature of competition reveals problems for this qualified account. Given the most common explication of competition, this (...) qualification artificially and radically constrains IBE’s domain of applicability. Using a more subtle, recent explication of competition, this qualification no longer provides a compelling treatment of conjunctive explanations. In light of these results, I suggest a different strategy for accommodating conjunctive explanations. Instead of modifying the form of IBE, I suggest a new way of thinking about the structure of IBE’s lot of considered hypotheses. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists are increasingly investigating the conditions under which multiple explanations are better in conjunction than they are individually. This book brings together leading scholars to provide an interdisciplinary and unified discussion of such "conjunctive explanations." The book starts with an introductory chapter expounding the notion of conjunctive explanation and motivating a multifaceted approach to its study. The remaining chapters are divided into three parts. Part I includes chapters on "The Nature of Conjunctive (...) class='Hi'>Explanations." Each chapter illustrates distinct ways in which explanatory multiplicity is motivated by a careful study of the nature and concept of explanation. The second part ("Reasoning about Conjunctive Explanations") includes chapters on the epistemology and logic of conjunctive explanations. Here the contributors propose and evaluate various norms for reasoning correctly about and to conjunctive explanations. Part III concerns "The Psychology of Conjunctive Explanations," with contributions discussing conditions under which humans entertain and hold multiple explanations of single explananda simultaneously and the cognitive limitations and capacities for doing so. Conjunctive Explanations will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on explanation in philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophical logic, and cognitive psychology. (shrink)

This chapter develops and defends a formal epistemology of conjunctive explanation by determining the conditions under which multiple distinct explanations are better than one. The general approach is to identify an appropriate measure of explanatory goodness that can then be applied to conjunctive explanations. If a conjunctive explanation is to be preferred it needs to have greater explanatory virtue (e.g., power or scope) with respect to the evidence, but this explanatory gain is insufficient on its (...) own. Given a conjunctive explanation’s greater complexity, it also has a cost associated with it and so a balance needs to be struck between the gain and the cost. This is achieved by employing a Bayesian measure proposed by I. J. Good. This chapter explores some properties of this measure and its application to the epistemology of conjunctive explanation. In so doing, it addresses the general question of whether it is desirable to have more informative, less probable hypotheses when seeking good explanations. (shrink)

In the paper we discuss criticisms against David Armstrong’s general theory of truthmaking by Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Peter Schulte and Benjamin Schnieder, and conclude that Armstrong’s theory survives these criticisms. Special attention is given to the problems concerning Entailment Principle, Conjunction Thesis, Disjunction Thesis and to the notion of explanation.

The conjunction fallacy is the well-documented empirical finding that subjects sometimes rate a conjunction A&B as more probable than one of its conjuncts, A. Most explanations appeal in some way to the fact that B has a high probability. But Tentori et al. (2013) have recently challenged such approaches, reporting experiments which find that (1) when B is confirmed by relevant evidence despite having low probability, the fallacy is common, and (2) when B has a high probability but has (...) not been confirmed by relevant evidence, the fallacy is less common. They conclude that degree of confirmation, rather than probability, is the central determinant of the conjunction fallacy. In this paper, we address a confound in these experiments: Tentori et al. (2013) failed to control for the fact that their (1)-situations make B conversationally relevant, while their (2)-situations do not. Hence their results are consistent with the hypothesis that con- versationally relevant high probability is an important driver of the conjunction fallacy. Inspired by recent theoretical work that appeals to conversational relevance to explain the conjunction fallacy, we report on two experiments that control for this issue by making B relevant without changing its degree of probability or confirmation. We find that doing so increases the rate of the fallacy in (2)-situations, and leads to comparable fallacy-rates as (1)-situations. This suggests that (non-probabilistic) conversational relevance indeed plays a role in the conjunction fallacy, and paves the way toward further work on the interplay between relevance and confirmation. (shrink)

We argue against some of Reichenbach's claims about causal forks are incorrect. We do not see why the Second Law of Thermodynamics rules out the existence of conjunctive forks open to the past. In addition, we argue that a common effect rarely forms a conjunctive fork with its joint causes, but it sometimes does. Nevertheless, we think there is something to be said for Reichenbach's idea that forks of various kinds are relevant to explaining why we know more (...) about the past than about the future. And entropy turns out to play a role in the explanation, though not the determining role that Reichenbach envisions. (shrink)

The conjunction fallacy has been a key topic in debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. Despite extensive inquiry, however, the attempt of providing a satisfactory account of the phenomenon has proven challenging. Here, we elaborate the suggestion (first discussed by Sides et al., 2001) that in standard conjunction problems the fallacious probability judgments experimentally observed are typically guided by sound assessments of confirmation relations, meant in terms of contemporary Bayesian confirmation theory. Our main formal result is (...) a confirmation-theoretic account of the conjuntion fallacy which is proven robust (i.e., not depending on various alternative ways of measuring degrees of confirmation). The proposed analysis is shown distinct from contentions that the conjunction effect is in fact not a fallacy and is compared with major competing explanations of the phenomenon, including earlier references to a confirmation-theoretic account. (shrink)

The conjunction fallacy has been a key topic in debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. Despite extensive inquiry, however, the attempt to provide a satisfactory account of the phenomenon has proved challenging. Here we elaborate the suggestion (first discussed by Sides, Osherson, Bonini, & Viale, 2002) that in standard conjunction problems the fallacious probability judgements observed experimentally are typically guided by sound assessments of _confirmation_ relations, meant in terms of contemporary Bayesian confirmation theory. Our main formal (...) result is a confirmation-theoretic account of the conjunction fallacy, which is proven _robust_ (i.e., not depending on various alternative ways of measuring degrees of confirmation). The proposed analysis is shown distinct from contentions that the conjunction effect is in fact not a fallacy, and is compared with major competing explanations of the phenomenon, including earlier references to a confirmation-theoretic account. (shrink)

Crupi et al. (2008) offer a confirmation-theoretic, Bayesian account of the conjunction fallacy—an error in reasoning that occurs when subjects judge that Pr( h 1 & h 2 | e ) > Pr( h 1 | e ). They introduce three formal conditions that are satisfied by classical conjunction fallacy cases, and they show that these same conditions imply that h 1 & h 2 is confirmed by e to a greater extent than is h 1 alone. Consequently, they suggest (...) that people are tracking this confirmation relation when they commit conjunction fallacies. I offer three experiments testing the merits of Crupi et al.’s account specifically and confirmation-theoretic accounts of the conjunction fallacy more generally. The results of Experiment 1 show that, although Crupi et al.’s conditions do seem to be causally linked to the conjunction fallacy, they are not necessary for it; there exist cases that do not meet their three conditions in which subjects still tend to commit the fallacy. The results of Experiments 2 and 3 show that Crupi et al.’s conditions, and those offered by other confirmation-theoretic accounts of the fallacy, are not sufficient for the fallacy either; there exist cases that meet all three of CFT’s conditions in which subjects do not tend to commit the fallacy. Additionally, these latter experiments show that such confirmation-theoretic conditions are at best only weakly causally relevant to the presence of the conjunction fallacy. Given these findings, CFT’s account specifically, and any general confirmation-theoretic account more broadly, falls short of offering a satisfying explanation of the presence of the conjunction fallacy. (shrink)

Alan Garfinkel (1981) and Bas van Fraassen (1980), among others, have proposed a contrastive theory of explanation, according to which the proper form of an explanatory why-question is not simply "Why P?" but "Why P rather than Q?". Dennis Temple (1988) has argued in this journal that the contrastive explanandum "P rather than Q" is equivalent to the conjunction, "P and not-Q". I show that the contrast is not equivalent to the conjunction, nor to other plausible noncontrastive candidates. I then (...) consider David Lewis's (1986) proposal for the way contrasts determine an explanatory cause, which does not require recasting the contrastive explanandum. Lewis's proposal is found to be unacceptable, but it suggests an improvement that shows contrastive explanations to employ a mechanism of "causal triangulation", similar to Mill's method of difference. (shrink)

According to a causal model of explanation, we explain phenomena by giving their causes or, where the phenomena are themselves causal regularities, we explain them by giving a mechanism linking cause and effect. If we explain why smoking causes cancer, we do not give the cause of this causal connection, but we do give the causal mechanism that makes it. The claim that to explain is to give a cause is not only natural and plausible, but it also avoids many (...) of the objections to other accounts of explanation, such as the views that to explain is to give a reason to believe the phenomenon occurred, to somehow make the phenomenon familiar, or to give a Deductive-Nomological argument. Unlike the reason for belief account, a causal model makes a clear distinction between understanding why a phenomenon occurs and merely knowing that it does, and the model does so in a way that makes understanding unmysterious and objective. Understanding is not some sort of super-knowledge, but simply more knowledge: knowledge of the phenomenon and knowledge of its causal history. A causal model makes it clear how something can explain without itself being explained, and so avoids the regress of whys, since we can know a phenomenon's cause without knowing the cause of the cause. It also accounts for legitimate self-evidencing explanations, explanations where the phenomenon is an essential part of the evidence that the explanation is correct, so the explanation can not supply a non-circular reason for believing the phenomenon occurred. There is no barrier to knowing a cause through its effects and also knowing that it is their cause. The speed of recession of a star explains its observed red-shift, even though the shift is an essential part of the evidence for its speed of recession. The model also avoids the most serious objection to the familiarity view, which is that some phenomena are familiar yet not understood, since a phenomenon can be perfectly familiar, such as the blueness of the sky or the fact that the same side of the moon always faces the earth, even if we do not know its cause. Finally, a causal model avoids many of the objections to the Deductive-Nomological model. Ordinary explanations do not have to meet the requirements of the Deductive-Nomological model, because one does not need to give a law to give a cause, and one does not need to know a law to have good reason to believe that a cause is a cause. As for the notorious over-permissiveness of the Deductive-Nomological model, the reason recession explains red-shift but not conversely, is simply that causes explain effects but not conversely, and the reason a conjunction of laws does not explain its conjuncts is that conjunctions do not cause their conjuncts. (shrink)

Church and Fitch have argued that from the verificationationist thesis “for every proposition, if this proposition is true, then it is possible to know it” we can derive that for every truth there is someone who knows that truth. Moreover, Humberstone has shown that from the latter proposition we can derive that someone knows every truth, hence that there is an omniscient being. In his article “Omnificence”, John Bigelow adapted these arguments in order to argue that from the assumption "every (...) contingent proposition is such that if it is true something brought it about that it is true" we can derive that there is an omnificent being: a being that brings it about that every true contingent proposition is true. In my reply to his article, I show that Bigelow’s argument is flawed because there is some formal property that the knowledge operator has but that the bringing about operator lacks. This is the property of distributing over conjunctions. I explain why what brings it about that some conjunctive proposition is true need not bring it about that its conjuncts are true. (shrink)

The conjunctive conception takes imitation to be a combination of observational learning and copying. In the target article, and elsewhere, this conception generates problems in (1) explaining the copying of intransitive actions, (2) elucidating the potential functions of imitation, and (3) recognising when the correspondence problem has been avoided rather than solved. Hurley's careful use of subpersonal and personal levels of explanation shows us how to tackle these and other questions about imitation.

underpinning of the cognitive sciences. I argue, however, that it often fails to provide adequate explanations, in particular in conjunction with competence theories. This failure originates in the idealizations in competence descriptions, which either ?block? the cascade, or produce a successful cascade which fails to explain cognition.

This paper describes a formal measure of epistemic justification motivated by the dual goal of cognition, which is to increase true beliefs and reduce false beliefs. From this perspective the degree of epistemic justification should not be the conditional probability of the proposition given the evidence, as it is commonly thought. It should be determined instead by the combination of the conditional probability and the prior probability. This is also true of the degree of incremental confirmation, and I argue that (...) any measure of epistemic justification is also a measure of incremental confirmation. However, the degree of epistemic justification must meet an additional condition, and all known measures of incremental confirmation fail to meet it. I describe this additional condition as well as a measure that meets it. The paper then applies the measure to the conjunction fallacy and proposes an explanation of the fallacy. (shrink)

The phenomenon of regression toward the mean is notoriously liable to be overlooked or misunderstood; regression fallacies are easy to commit. But even when regression phenomena are duly recognized, it remains perplexing how they can feature in explanations. This article develops a philosophical account of regression explanations as “statistically autonomous” explanations that cannot be deepened by adducing details about causal histories, even if the explananda as such are embedded in the causal structure of the world. That regression (...) explanations have statistical autonomy was first suggested by Ian Hacking and has recently been defended and elaborated by André Ariew, Yasha Rohwer, and Collin Rice. However, I will argue that these analyses fail to capture what regression’s statistical autonomy consists in and how it sets regression explanations apart from other kinds of explanation. The alternative account I develop also shows what is amiss with a recent denial of regression’s statistical autonomy. Marc Lange has argued that facts that can be explained as regression phenomena can in principle also be explained by citing a conjunction of causal histories. The account of regression explanation developed here shows that his argument is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of statistical autonomy. (shrink)

Recent work in defence of direct realism has concentrated on the representationalist and disjunctivist responses to the arguments from illusion and hallucination, whilst relatively little attention has been given to the argument from causation which has been dismissed lightly as irrelevant or confused. However such charges arise from an ambiguity in the thesis which is being defended and the failure to distinguish between metaphysical and epistemological issues and between factual and conceptual claims. The argument from causation, as an argument against (...) the conjunction of metaphysical direct realism and an explanation of the perceptual process in terms of a naturalistically understood causal chain of events, has not been answered in the philosophical literature. Moreover when the process of perception is fleshed out in terms of contemporary cognitive science, the difficulties are compounded. Neither representation-friendly mainstream cognitive science, nor representation-averse radical embodied cognitive science, is compatible with a theory of perception which is at the same time both direct and robustly realist. (shrink)

Two widely accepted assumptions within cognitive science are that (1) the goal is to understand the mechanisms responsible for cognitive performances and (2) computational modeling is a major tool for understanding these mechanisms. The particular approaches to computational modeling adopted in cognitive science, moreover, have significantly affected the way in which cognitive mechanisms are understood. Unable to employ some of the more common methods for conducting research on mechanisms, cognitive scientists’ guiding ideas about mechanism have developed in conjunction with their (...) styles of modeling. In particular, mental operations often are conceptualized as comparable to the processes employed in classical symbolic AI or neural network models. These models, in turn, have been interpreted by some as themselves intelligent systems since they employ the same type of operations as does the mind. For this paper, what is significant about these approaches to modeling is that they are constructed specifically to account for behavior and are evaluated by how well they do so—not by independent evidence that they describe actual operations in mental mechanisms. (shrink)

This article defends the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) from a simple and direct valid argument according to which PSR implies that there is a truth that explains every truth, namely an omni-explainer. Many proponents of PSR may be willing to bite the bullet and maintain that, if PSR is true, then there is an omni-explainer. I object to this strategy by defending the principle that explanation is irreflexive. Then I argue that proponents of PSR can resist the conclusion that (...) there is an omni-explainer by denying that explanation distributes over conjunction. In the final section, I consider a plausible revision of this assumption. I argue there that, given the revised assumption, PSR seems to yield a striking picture of the explanatory structure of the universe. I explain why the resulting model does not appear utterly implausible to me. (shrink)

Human agents happen to judge that a conjunction of two terms is more probable than one of the terms, in contradiction with the rules of classical probabilities—this is the conjunction fallacy. One of the most discussed accounts of this fallacy is currently the quantum-like explanation, which relies on models exploiting the mathematics of quantum mechanics. The aim of this paper is to investigate the empirical adequacy of major quantum-like models which represent beliefs with quantum states. We first argue that they (...) can be tested in three different ways, in a question order effect configuration which is different from the traditional conjunction fallacy experiment. We then carry out our proposed experiment, with varied methodologies from experimental economics. The experimental results we get are at odds with the predictions of the quantum-like models. This strongly suggests that this quantum-like account of the conjunction fallacy fails. Future possible research paths are discussed. (shrink)

This paper raises a principled objection against the idea that Bayesian confirmation theory can be used to explain the conjunction fallacy. The paper demonstrates that confirmation-based explanations are limited in scope and can only be applied to cases of the fallacy of a certain restricted kind. In particular; confirmation-based explanations cannot account for the inverse conjunction fallacy, a more recently discovered form of the conjunction fallacy. Once the problem has been set out, the paper explores four different ways (...) for the confirmation theorist to come to terms with the problem, and argues that none of them are successful. (shrink)

This paper takes issue with a recent proposal due to Shogenji (Synthese 184:29–48, 2012). In his paper, Shogenji introduces J, a normatively motivated formal measure of justification (and of confirmation), and then proceeds to recruit it descriptively in an explanation of the conjunction fallacy. We argue that this explanation is undermined by the fact that it cannot be extended in any natural way to the inverse conjunction fallacy, a more recently discovered, closely related fallacy. We point out that since the (...) inverse conjunction fallacy occurs in the absence of any form of explicit evidence, formal measures of confirmation such as J, are hard pressed to apply to it at all. We then proceed to argue that this problem with Shogenji’s measure is actually quite difficult to come to terms with; even if the situations where people commit the inverse conjunction fallacy are understood in such a way that the measure is applicable, it doesn’t seem possible to reasonably interpret these situations in such a way that the measure can explain the found response pattern. (shrink)

We abandon as redundant the assumption that there exists something more in the physical world than action quanta, which constitute the atoms of the events of which the four-dimensional world consists. We derive metric, energy, matter, etc., from action and the structure formed by the quanta. In the microworld thequantization of space so introduced implies deviations from conventional metrics that make it possible in particular to explain nonlocality. The uncertainty relations, then, in conjunction with the action-based metric, appear to play (...) an essential role in making direct physical contact between emission and absorption events (i.e., retroactivity) possible, which concretely answers Bohr's conjecture that microprocesses constitute “wholes.” All of this appears to afford a realistic explanation of wave-particle “duality,” the EPR and other quantum paradoxes, the hidden variable problem, the “collapse” of wave packets, and the wave interference mechanism with the ¦ ϕ ¦2 rule. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe paper deals with a problem posed by Mathieu Vidal to provide a formal representation for defective conditional in mathematics Vidal, M. [. The defective conditional in mathematics. Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics, 24, 169–179]. The key feature of defective conditional is that its truth-value is indeterminate if its antecedent is false. In particular, we are interested in two explanations given by Vidal with the use of trivalent logics. By analysing a simple argument from plane geometry, where defective conditional (...) is in use, he gives two trivalent formal explanations for it. For both explanations, Vidal rigorously shows that trivalent logics cannot adequately represent defective conditional. Preserving Vidal's criteria of defective conditional ad max, we indicate some arguable points in his explanations and present an alternative explanation containing the original conjunction and disjunction in order to show that there are trivalent logics that might be an adequate formal explanation for defective conditional. (shrink)

This is a forthcoming section for the book "Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy", edited by Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, Evan Fales, Joseph Koterski, Mashhad Al-Allaf, Robert Fastiggi, and David Shatz. I was asked to write a brief essay on whether naturalism or theism can successfully explain the distribution of suffering in our world. Wheras another section covers the possibility that suffering is evidence against theism, my essay is concerned only with the ability for either naturalism or theism to (...) explain suffering. I argue that, for naturalists, suffering is not to be explained by either philosophers of religion or theologians. Instead, naturalists believe that suffering should be explained by the cognitive and social sciences, perhaps in conjunction with political philosophy and philosophy of mind. Moreover, naturalists may take suffering to be an important reason for action. In a world without a transcendent, supernatural being to watch over us, we can only depend upon each other to ameliorate existing conditions, to the extent that they can be ameliorated. On the other hand, theistic explanations of the distibution of suffering slip very easily into problematic theologies when they try to offer explicit explanations for suffering. For example, the world's most vulnerable people are often those who suffer the most, whereas oppressors are often able to prosper. That is, theistic explanations of our world's suffering easily slip into, e.g., the just world fallacy, racist ideology (i.e., that God favors some race(s) of people over others), or patriarchal ideology. Instead of offering an explicit explanation, theists should instead be skeptical theists -- i.e., they should argue that an explanation for our world's suffering is beyond our ken. While skeptical theism avoids the aforementioned problematic implications, if skeptical theism is true, then our world's suffering cannot be fully explained. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to an exploration of the implications for the theory of pre-lexical syntax as developed by McCawley, and for syntactic theories in general, of an analysis of English emphatic conjunctions along the lines of Green . Among the conclusions are: The underlying representation of sentences must be much more abstract than has even been imagined previously, referring, in some as yet undiscovered way, to assumptions of the speaker about the real world, in order to account for the (...) grammatical occurrence of both terms of suppletive lexical items in otherwise identical surface strings with corresponding differences in meaning. A grammatical theory which purports to be capable of relating the sentences of a language to what they mean in a systematic way must be capable of referring directly to relevant assumptions made by the speaker of any given utterance at the time of utterance. So-called 'contrastive stress' is only one of the phenomena whose ultimate explanation depends on direct reference to such assumptions. Transformational grammars, which explicitly claim to be capable of relating in a systematic way the sentences of a language and what they mean, must be capable of referring to the sub-lexical, semantic structure of sentences, and furthermore, must be capable of doing so at an indefinite number of points in their derivation. This means that the semantic representation of a sentence must be available for reference at every stage in the derivation of the sentence. (shrink)

The words used in the languages generally have an original/basic meaning. However, these words gain new and special meanings over time apart from their basic meaning. These emerging meanings are not completely independent of the basic meaning. Because new and special meanings emerge on the axis of basic meaning. In the Qurʾān, naturally, many words are used in connotations other than their original meaning. Therefore, it is not possible to give a correct meaning to the verse without determining the meaning (...) of the words in the verses. In this study, it was investigated whether the conjunction ev in the verses was translated into Turkish correctly. For this purpose, firstly, the most accurate meanings of the conjunction ev in the verses discussed were tried to be determined from the vucūh and nezāir and tafsīr books, then these meanings were compared according to meāls and translation errors were pointed out. Accurate translations are emphasized; alternative translations are also presented when necessary. The conjunction ev in its basic meaning in Arabic indicates that the speaker is in doubt and hesitation in sentences expressing proposition and judgment In sentences such as orders and demands, it indicates that the addressee can choose between the options. However, this conjunction is sometimes used instead of conjunctions/prepositions such as and, even, to, until and except. In the vucūh and nezāir books, which are accepted as the Qurʾānic dictionary, it is agreed that the conjunction ev is used instead of and and even in the Qurʾān. In many tafsīrs much more meanings are given to the conjunction ev and it is stated that this conjunction is used instead of conjunctions such as until, to, except. In addition, it is stated in the some tafsīrs that conjunction ev adds various meanings to the expression such as elaboration, diversity, division and concealment. Where the conjunction ev is used in its basic meaning, translation errors were not made in the majority of the translations, except in very rare cases. Translation errors related to the conjunction ev mostly occurred when this conjunction was used out of its own meaning. Most of these errors are related to the words attributed to Almighty Allah by stating propositions and judgments. Because the conjunction ev used in these sentences indicates that the speaker is in doubt. However, this cannot be the case for Almighty Allah. Because Almighty Allah never doubts the matters He informs. Therefore, it is clear and certain that the conjunction ev is not used in the basic sense in such verses. It is determined that in the meāls we examined, this detail was generally not paid attention to. Although it is certain that the conjunction ev in these expressions attributed to Allah is not in the basic sense, it cannot always be clearly understood from the context in what sense it is used. Therefore, different opinions have been asserted in the sources on this issue. As a result, a scholar has taken the conjunction ev in any verse that comes in such a form to mean and, one to even, and another to except. The author of meāl usually prefers one of these meanings and tries to transfer it to the target language. However, it may not be possible to transfer every preferred meaning to meāl. For example, while it is possible to translate the meaning of and and even of the conjunction ev into Turkish, it doesn’t seem possible to transfer the meaning of ibhām/hide from the interlocutor. Therefore, a meāl writer who prefers the meaning of ibhām should translate this verse adhering to the words, and explain the meaning in the additional explanation section. Because in such a case, it is not possible to transfer the meaning to Turkish only through translation. Another reason why some verses in which the conjunction ev is used are translated incorrectly into Turkish is the attempt to convey the forms of expression particular to Arabic through literal translation. In such cases, the correct meaning should be determined first, and then the translation should be made without depending on the words. Because the purpose of translation is to convey the meaning, not the words. This study has confirmed that the author of the translation should have knowledge of the subtleties of the source and target language, and that he should make maximum use of the works written on vucūh and nezāir and the sources of tafsīr. However, it is also emphasized that every information contained in these works should not be accepted as essential without being subject to criticism. (shrink)

In this paper I consider Stich's principle of autonomy argument (From Folk Psychology To Cognitive Science) as an argument that computationalism is an incorrect approach to explanation and prediction in cognitive science. After considering the principle of autonomy argument in light of several computational systems and psychological examples, I conclude that the argument is unsound. I formulate my reasons for rejecting Stich's argument as unsound into the conjunction argument. Finally, I argue that the conjunction argument is sound, and that its (...) soundness adds additional plausibility to computationalism as an explanatory schema in cognitive science. (shrink)

A "patternist" approach to explanation seeks to formalize unificationism using notions from algorithmic information theory. Among other advantages, this account provides both a rigorous sense of how data can admit multiple explanations, and a rigorous sense of how some of those explanations can conjoin, while others compete.

Standard articulations of Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) imply the uniqueness claim that exactly one explanation should be inferred in response to an explanandum. This claim has been challenged as being both too strong (sometimes agnosticism between candidate explanatory hypotheses seems the rational conclusion) and too weak (in cases where multiple hypotheses might sensibly be conjointly inferred). I propose a novel interpretation of IBE that retains the uniqueness claim while also allowing for agnostic and conjunctive conclusions. I then (...) argue that a particular probabilistic explication of explanatory goodness helpfully guides us in navigating such options when using IBE. (shrink)

Recent attempts to reconcile the ontic and epistemic approaches to explanation propose that our best explanations simply fulfill epistemic and ontic norms simultaneously. I aim to upset this armistice. Epistemic norms of attaining general and systematic explanations are, I argue, autonomous of ontic norms: they cannot be fulfilled simultaneously or in simple conjunction with ontic norms, and plausibly have priority over them. One result is that central arguments put forth by ontic theorists against epistemic theorists are revealed as (...) not only question-begging, but ultimately self-defeating. Another result is that a more nuanced reconciliation of the epistemic and ontic views is required: we should regard good explanatory practice as a dynamic process with distinct phases of epistemic and ontic success. (shrink)

There are obvious grounds for the conjunction anthropology and ethics, proposed as the Monist topic. When philosophers teach or write ethics, material from alien ways of life illuminates and enriches the discussion, and sometimes helps chasten the urge to elevate local practises into universal principles. The question might then be raised: to what extent do anthropological discoveries affect the status and theories about the status of moral principles? The answer will affirm or take issue with that vaguely defined view, cultural (...) relativism. (shrink)

The central argument in this paper is the following: if we agree that one of the aims of explanation is to provide or increase understanding, and if we assess understanding on the basis of the inferences one can draw from the knowledge of the phenomenon which is understood, then the value of an explanation, i.e. its capacity to provide or increase understanding of the explained phenomenon, should be assessed on the basis of the extra-inferences which this explanation allows for. The (...) extra-inferences which a given explanation allows for constitute its inferential content. The analysis of the explanation’s inferential content could be applied to all kinds of explanations with the aim of assessing their goodness. I show how such an analysis helps us to better understand a number of difficulties that have puzzled contemporary philosophers of explanation: the flagpole counterexample to the deductive-nomological model of explanation, the conjunction problem, the difference between good and bad circular explanations. (shrink)

According to many philosophers, psychological explanation canlegitimately be given in terms of belief and desire, but not in termsof knowledge. To explain why someone does what they do (so the common wisdom holds) you can appeal to what they think or what they want, but not what they know. Timothy Williamson has recently argued against this view. Knowledge, Williamson insists, plays an essential role in ordinary psychological explanation.Williamson's argument works on two fronts.First, he argues against the claim that, unlike knowledge, (...) belief is``composite'' (representable as a conjunction of a narrow and a broadcondition). Belief's failure to be composite, Williamson thinks, undermines the usual motivations for psychological explanation in terms of belief rather than knowledge.Unfortunately, we claim, the motivations Williamson argues against donot depend on the claim that belief is composite, so what he saysleaves the case for a psychology of belief unscathed.Second, Williamson argues that knowledge can sometimes provide abetter explanation of action than belief can.We argue that, in the cases considered, explanations that cite beliefs(but not knowledge) are no less successful than explanations that citeknowledge. Thus, we conclude that Williamson's arguments fail both coming andgoing: they fail to undermine a psychology of belief, and they fail tomotivate a psychology of knowledge. (shrink)

Two jarring results concerning the main theses of Georg Henrik von Wright's Explanation and Understanding are reached through an examination and criticism of his project. It is shown, contrary to his settled judgment both in EU and subsequently, that the schema of practical inference is a causal principle, and that it is nomological in character. But one feature of von Wright's overall analysis holds up and continues to show promise: his idea of understanding explanation. This idea combines the EU account (...) of the schema and its instantiation with the notion of an intelligible connection of these instantiating elements with one another. Here the schema is deployed in conjunction with the test of intelligible connection as one of its conditions of application. The schema, so deployed, is revisable on the basis of experiences that do not conform to what we expect them to be when they are regimented in accordance with the model of understanding explanation; thus, even though the schema is not a general law, we have a basis for characterizing it as nomological, nonetheless. (shrink)

The transport of molecules across the nuclear envelope plays a central role in the metabolism of the cell. Significant advances hi three major areas highlight the limits of our current knowledge and point to the prospect of exciting future developments. Firstly, findings that ions and small proteins do not diffuse freely into the nucleus call into question the current views of nuclear envelope permeability. Secondly, indications that nuclear protein import can be regulated in conjunction with the cell cycle and development (...) have been confirmed by the clear demonstration of regulated nuclear entry of specific transcription factors and morphogens. Thirdly, identification and characterisation of candidate receptor proteins indicates that the recognition of the nuclear targeting sequence occurs in the cytoplasm, suggesting that a different recognition event occurs at the nuclear pore. (shrink)

Rope Kojonen has presented a novel argument for design in biology by drawing on insights from evolutionary science. Without objecting to the explanatory role of evolution, he argues that there is further explanatory work to be done and that this is best achieved by an appeal to design. Here, I interpret his argument, and attempt to evaluate it, as a conjunctive explanation since he appeals to two explanations to account for the purposeful order and complexity of living organisms. (...) Understood in this way, I argue that he makes a very plausible case that two explanations (evolution and design) are better than one (evolution). I also explore the role that direct guidance by God might play in such an argument. (shrink)

My aim is to examine Aristotle's hylomorphism as a model for scientific explanation of living beings. I argue that the issue of matter-form relation should be connected with the opposition between the necessity of material and efficient causes and the teleology of forms. Form (as "telos") is a principle able to organize the appropriate conjunction of material and efficient causes. Formal and final causes are not a trick for filling the "gap in causation", nor are they bare heuristic tools for (...) inquiring into the "true" causes. The primacy of formal and final causes guarantees an appropriate account of material and efficient causes inasmuch as form and "telos" are responsible for bending and organizing the original dispositions of the material elements. (shrink)