Psychology Dictionary of Arguments

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Explanation: making a statement in relation to an event, a state, a change or an action that was described before by a deviating statement. The statement will often try to involve circumstances, history, logical premises, causes and causality. See also description, statements, theories, understanding, literal truth, best explanation, causality, cause, completeness.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Peter Railton on Explanation - Dictionary of Arguments

Lewis V 233
Probability/Explanation/covering law model/deductive-nomological/Peter Railton: According to Railton's model, an explanation has two parts:
1st. a D-N argument (deductively nomological argument), which satisfies some conditions of the non probabilistic case. Its premises can also include probability laws.
2nd (not part of the argument): The finding that the event has taken place.
If the premises say that certain events have taken place, then these are sufficiently given together the laws for the actual event or for probability.
>Deductive-nomological
.
Problem: a subset - given even only a part of the laws - can also be sufficient to explain parts of the events, and produce a number of remnants that are still sufficient under the original laws. Therefore, one must have two conditions when explaining:
1. that certain events together are sufficient for the Explanandum event (under the prevailing laws)
2. that only some of the laws are needed to guarantee the sufficiency of the conditions.
>Sufficiency.
LewisVsRailton: if we had a covering law for causation, along with our covering law for explanation, that would reconcile my approach with the covering law approach.
But that is not available!
>Covering laws.
V 233/234
Often one element of the sufficient reason of the D-N set (deductive-nomological) will in reality be one of the causes itself. But that must not be! The counter-examples are well known:
1. to the sufficient subset can belong a completely irrelevant reason, the requirement of the minimalism does not help: we could produce an artificial minimalism, by taking weaker laws and leaving stronger laws unconsidered.
Example Salmon: A man takes the pill and does not get pregnant! The premise that nobody who takes the pill becomes pregnant must not be omitted!
2 An element of the sufficient subset could be something that is not an event:
For example, a premise can determine that something has an extrinsic or highly disjunctive property. that cannot specify any real events.
3. an effect may belong to the subset if the laws say that it can only be produced in a certain way. I.e. the quantity could be minimal in a suitable way, and also be one of events, but that would not be sufficient to make the effect the cause of its cause!
4. such an effect can also be sufficient subset for another effect, e.g. of a later, same cause. For example, that a commercial appears on my TV is caused by the same broadcast as the same commercial appears on your TV, but the one is not the cause of the other. Rather, they have a common cause.
5. a prevented potential cause could be part of the subset because nothing has overridden it.
LewisVsRailton: this shows that the common sufficient subset presented by D-N argument may not be a set of causes.
V 235
LewisVsRailton: if a D-N argument seems to show no causes, but still seems to be an explanation, this is a problem for my own theory.
>Explanation/Lewis.
VsHempel: refractive index, VsRailton: in reality there are no non-causal cases.
RailtonVsLewis: if the D-N model does not present causes, and therefore does not look like an explanation, then this is a problem for the D-N model.
Railton: therefore not every D-N model is a correct explanation.
V 236
Question: can any causal history be characterized by the information contained in a D-N argument (deductive-nomological argument)? This would be the case if each cause belongs to a sufficient subset - given the laws. Or in the probabilistic case: under probability laws.
And is that so that the causes fall under it?
Lewis: That does not follow from the counterfactual analysis of causality! Nevertheless, it may be true. (It will be true in a possible world with sufficiently strict laws.
If explanatory information is information about causal history, then one way to deliver it is via D-N arguments.
But then there's still something wrong! The D-N arguments are presented as ideal. I.e. they have the right form. nothing too much and not too little.
But nobody thinks that everyday explaining fulfills this. Normally the best we can do is to make existential assumptions.
"Therefore" assertion/Morton White: we can take as existential assumptions.
LewisVsRailton: correct D-N arguments as existence assumptions are not yet a real explanation. Simply because of their form, they do not meet the standard of how much information is sufficient.
Lewis: There's always more to know, no matter how perfect the D N arguments are. The D N A always only give a cross-section of the causal history. Many causes may be omitted. And this could be the one we are looking for right now. Perhaps we would like to get to know the mechanisms involved in certain traces of causal history.
V 238
Explanation/Lewis/VsRailton: a D-N argument can also be of wrong form: not giving us enough too much at the same time.
Explanation/Lewis: it is not that we have a different idea of the unity of the explanation. We should not demand unity at all: an explanation is not something you can have or miss, but something you can have more or less of.
Problem: the idea of having "enough" explanation: it nourishes doubts about the knowledge of our ancestors: they rarely or never had complete knowledge of the laws of nature.
LewisVsRailton: I.e. they rarely or never had complete D-N arguments. Did they therefore have incomplete explanatory knowledge? I think no! They knew a lot about how things were caused.
Solution/Railton: (similar to my picture): together with each Explanandum we have an extended and complex structure.
V 239
Lewis: For me these structures are connected by causal dependence
Railton: for him they consist of an "ideal text" of D-N arguments (deductively nomological arguments) as in mathematical proofs.
>Causal dependence, >Causality, >Causes, >Causal explanation.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Railt
P. Railton
Facts, Values, and Norms: Essays toward a Morality of Consequence Cambridge 1999

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, , Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, , Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, , Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991


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