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Problemistics - Problémistique - Problemistica
The Art & Craft of Problem Dealing
Explaining
Definition of explanation (Ludwig van Bertalanffy)
Definition of explanation (C. Jarvie)
Definition of explanation (W. I. B. Beveridge)
Characteristics of explanation (Abraham Kaplan)
Requirements of explanation (Irving M. Copi)
Requirements of explanation (Abraham Kaplan)
Function of explanation (Abraham Kaplan)
Function of explanation (Stephen F. Barker)
Scientific-unscientific explanation (Irving M. Copi)
Spurious explanation (Jennifer Trusted)
Explanation and scientific activity (Peter Caws)
Explanation and understanding (Rom Harré)
Explanation and understanding (Jennifer Trusted)
Explanation and understanding (Abraham Kaplan)
Explanation and description (Abraham Kaplan)
Explanation and prediction (Abraham Kaplan)
Values and explanation (Jennifer Trusted)
[1960, First English Edition 1952] Ludwig van Bertalanffy, Problems of Life
“By explanation we understand the subordination of the particular to the general, and conversely, the derivation of the special from the general.” (Chapter V, p. 161)
[1975, First Edition 1970] C. Jarvie in Robert Borger and Frank Cioffi (editors), Explanation in the Behavioural Sciences
“... explanation is the process of deducing one statement from others in accordance with some formal and also some material requirements.”
("Understanding and Explanation in Sociology and Social Anthropology", p. 231)
[1957, Third edition] W. I. B. Beveridge, The Art of Scientific Investigation, Random House, New York
“Explanations usually consist in connecting new observations or ideas to accepted facts or ideas. An explanation may be a generalisation which ties together a bundle of data into an orderly whole that can be connected up with current knowledge and beliefs.” (Chapter 5, p. 82)
[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry. Methodology for Behavioural Science, Chandler Publishing Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania
1 "Explanations are partial: only some of the factors determining the phenomenon being explained are taken into account.”
2 "Explanations are conditional: they hold true only of a certain range of phenomena and are applicable only when certain conditions are satisfied.”
3 "Explanations are approximate: the magnitudes they yield are more or less inexact, the qualities they ascribe are a shade different from what is observed.”
4 "Explanations are indeterminate in their application to particular instances: they are statistical in content if not in explicit form and may be true generally speaking but not in every single case.”
5 "Explanations are inconclusive: they do not show why what is being explained must be so, but why it was very likely that it would be so.”
6 "Explanations are uncertain: the laws and theories invoked, as well as the data applying to the particular case, are confirmed only to some degree."
"The history of science is a history of the successive replacement of one explanation by another.” “What is required for an explanation is that the propositions adduced be well attested, that they rest on considerable evidence. Such propositions may eventually be shown to be false, but this event in the future does not rob them of a scientific use now.”
7 "Explanations are intermediate: every explanation is in turn subject to be explained.”
8 "Explanations are limited: they are appropriate to particular contexts in which they serve as explanations, not to every possible circumstance of inquiry."
“... it may be that not all explanations are open in all these ways at once, or at any rate, that not all of these attributes are equally significant in any given case.” (Chapter IX, pp. 351-355)
[1982, Sixth edition] Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic,
“The chief criterion for evaluating explanations is relevance.”
“The relevance of a proposed explanation ... corresponds exactly to the cogency of the argument by which the fact to be explained is inferred from the proposed explanation.”
(Chapter 13, p. 466)
[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry. Methodology for Behavioural Science, Chandler Publishing Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania
"... an explanation may be sound without being relevant; a good explanation is both."
“The same death may be explained both in physiological and psychological terms: it was a case of poisoning, and also a case of suicide. Both are sound explanations, but they are not certainly equally good ones in a given context.” (Chapter IX, p. 329)
[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry. Methodology for Behavioural Science, Chandler Publishing Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania
- Technological function: explanations “are used for a better adaptation to the environment, a more effective adjustment of available means to desired ends.” “The technological function ... is that conveyed in the proposition that knowledge is power.”
- Instrumental function: “we can produce results, however, not just by applying knowledge but even by merely communicating it.” “We may call this the instrumental function of explanation.”
- Heuristic function: “explanations also a have heuristic function, stimulating and guiding further inquiry.” (Chapter IX, pp. 356-357)
[1989 Fifth Edition] Stephen F. Barker, The Elements of Logic
“... the explanation tries to remove the strangeness, the anomaly, the puzzle, by showing how the thing being explained harmonizes with other known and conjectured facts.” (Chapter 7, p. 213)
[1982, Sixth edition] Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic,
“There are two important and closely related differences between the kind of explanation sought by science and the kind provided by superstitions of various sorts.
1) Attitude. “The first ... lies in the attitude. The typical attitude of one who really accepts an unscientific explanation is dogmatic." “The scientist’s attitude towards his explanations is altogether different. Every explanation in science is put forward tentatively and provisionally.”
2) Evidence. “The second difference lies in the basis for accepting or rejecting the view in question. Many unscientific views are mere prejudices that their adherents could scarcely give any reason for holding." [e.g., appeals to tradition or popularity rather than evidence]. “The case is quite different in the realm of science. Since every scientific explanation is regarded as a hypothesis, it is regarded as worthy of acceptance only to the extent that there is evidence for it.”
(Chapter 13, pp. 467-468)
[1987] Jennifer Trusted, Inquiry and Understanding
“Explanations in the human sciences are particularly liable to be spurious, or to verge on the spurious, because, as we have seen, the concepts and the facts tend to be more flexible, indeed some flexibility is desirable. Nevertheless, they cannot be so vague that they can accommodate all outcomes - some limits must be set.”
(p. 73)
“Genuine explanations may be true or false; spurious explanations are so framed that they cannot ever be shown to be false.” (p. 74)
“... this is the characteristic of pseudo-scientific theories and spurious explanations. It is not that they are wrong, rather it is that they are so formulated and interpreted that they cannot be falsified.” (p. 80)
[1965] Peter Caws, The Philosophy of Science
“We may ... summarize three aspects of scientific activity as leading to three objectives:
- classification which leads to description,
- explanation which leads to understanding,
- prediction which leads to control.
There is a sense in which all these three may be reduced to one, namely, explanation.” (Part I, Chapter 13, p. 91)
[1963] Rom Harré, An Introduction to the Logic of the Sciences
“To give an explanation is to give the reasons for a happening.” (p. 25)
“... an explanation must enable us to understand. And understanding is gained either by our finding an illuminating analogy to the phenomena whose character we do not understand, or by our ‘exposing a hidden mechanism’ the workings of which inevitably result in the phenomena that required explanation.” (p. 82)
[1987] Jennifer Trusted, Inquiry and Understanding
“The search for explanation is a search for knowledge and understanding.”
“... there is a logical connection between the concept of understanding and the concept of explanation for if an explanation is satisfactory, it must make the world to some extent more understandable.”
(Chapter 1, p. 2)
[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry. Methodology for Behavioural Science, Chandler Publishing Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania
“... there are two accounts of the reasons which provide understanding, and thereby explanation."
The pattern model. “According to the pattern model ... something is explained when it is so related to a set of other elements that together they constitute a unified system. We understand something by identifying it as a specific part in an organized whole.”
The deductive model. “... the explanation consists in reducing a special case to a more general one.” “To say that particular instances are ‘referred’ to general principles means this, that they are deducible from those principles together with something which serves to mark out whatever particular is in question.
To explain something is to exhibit it as a special case of what is known in general.”
(Chapter IX, pp. 333-339)
[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry. Methodology for Behavioural Science, Chandler Publishing Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania
“An explanation may be said to be a concatenated description.”
“Explanation is often contrasted with description, as telling us, not merely what happens, but why.”
“An explanation does not tell us something of a different kind than a description does, but it tells us something else than the mere description of what it is explaining, and especially something appropriate to the context in which the explanation is to function.”
(Chapter IX, p. 329)
[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry. Methodology for Behavioural Science, Chandler Publishing Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania
“I do not see that it is necessarily unscientific to attribute importance to the role of chance in human affairs ... but the more important its role in explanation the more it limits predictability.” (p. 348)
“Predictions can be and often are made even though we are not in a position to explain what is being predicted. This capacity is characteristic of well-established empirical generalizations that have not yet been transformed into theoretical laws. Ancient astronomers made predictions of quality incomparably better than their explaining theories.” (p. 349)
“In short, explanations provide understanding, but we can predict without being able to understand, and we can understand without necessarily being able to predict.” (p. 350)
[1987] Jennifer Trusted, Inquiry and Understanding
“... the values and interests of those seeking causal explanations can decide what explanation they offer, and this shows just as clearly when we consider possible causal explanations of events involving single individuals.”
“... different observers may ‘pick out’ a single cause as the ‘key cause’ and what they ‘pick out’ will be determined by their values and interests.” (Chapter 11, pp. 118-119)