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

Wesley Salmon on Explanation - Dictionary of Arguments

Fraassen I 122
Definition Explanation/W. Salmon: (new): consists in the demonstration of the relevant part of the causal network that leads to the events that have to be explained. Sometimes it is about investigating forwards and backwards in the network. E.g. Barometer:
>Relevance
- ->Common cause.
- - -
Schurz I 234
Probability /Explanation/W.Salmon/Ontology/Schurz: (Salmon 1971(1), 63, 1984(2)): Ex If an improbable event occurs, the explanation must contain the statement of the low probability value! And this is then the reason! Ex In a Mendelian crossing experiment, the probability for red is 75% and for white 25%. Then the occurrence of white must be justified with the probability of 25 % (against 75 %)!
Logical form: "p(white(x) I Ax) = 25 %, Ab// (0.25) white(b)".
Although the antecedent here lowers the probability of the explanadum event!
I 235
Salmon: Therefore, we may only require the antecedent to be positively or negatively relevant.
Hempel/Schurz: The late Hempel was convinced that.
>Explanation/Hempel.
CartwrighVsSalmon: It is counterintuitive to say that the event occurred because some factor was present that made it improbable.
Solution/Humphreys/Schurz: (Humphreys 1989(3),117) we refer to these as countercauses. (Schurz pro). We then say that the event occurred even though the antecedent occurred.
>Explanation/Cartwright.

1. Salmon, W. et al. (1971). Statistical explanation and Statistical Relvance (with Contributions by R.C. Jeffrey and J.G. Greeno). London: University of Pittsburg Press.
2. Salmon, W. (1984) Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton University Press.
3. Humphreys, P. (1989). The Chances of Explanation. Princeton University Press.

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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.

Sal I
Wesley C. Salmon
Logic, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1973
German Edition:
Logik Stuttgart 1983

Sal II
W. Salmon
The Foundations Of Scientific Inference 1967

SalN I
N. Salmon
Content, Cognition, and Communication: Philosophical Papers II 2007

Fr I
B. van Fraassen
The Scientific Image Oxford 1980

Schu I
G. Schurz
Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006


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