Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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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._____________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 |
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G. Vollmer on Explanation - Dictionary of Arguments
I 228 Explanation / Vollmer: misconception: each cognitive system would have to be more complex than the object that it explains. I 278 Explanation/"too much"/"too little"/Vollmer: a tautological explanation explains too little, an untestable explanation explains too much. >Theories, >Explanation, >Causal explanation, >Strength of theories, >Stronger/weaker, >Verification. I 279 Questions/Science/Biology/Evolution/Vollmer: the question "Why?" is in biology always welcome - even if it does not always find an answer. II 58 Why-questions / Science / VollmerVsFeynman / Vollmer: why questions must always be asked - when they are unanswerable, they are therefore not illegitimate. - This shows the relational character of explanations. >Why-questions._____________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. |
Vollmer I G. Vollmer Was können wir wissen? Bd. I Die Natur der Erkenntnis. Beiträge zur Evolutionären Erkenntnistheorie Stuttgart 1988 Vollmer II G. Vollmer Was können wir wissen? Bd II Die Erkenntnis der Natur. Beiträge zur modernen Naturphilosophie Stuttgart 1988 |