3. Explanation in science

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samir Okasha
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Good Explanation ◽  
Multiple Realization ◽  
Symmetric Relation ◽  
General Law ◽  
Covering Law

What exactly is scientific explanation? ‘Explanation in science’ begins with Carl Hempel's covering law model of explanation, which says that to explain a phenomenon is to show that its occurrence follows deductively from a general law, perhaps supplemented by other laws and/or particular facts, all of which must be true. This model does not deal with symmetry or irrelevance. The covering law model implies that explanation should be a symmetric relation, but in fact it is asymmetric. Also, a good explanation of a phenomenon should contain information that is relevant to the phenomenon's occurrence. Causality-based accounts of scientific explanation and the concepts of reduction and multiple realization are also explained.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Reutlinger ◽  
Juha Saatsi
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Covering Law

What is a scientific explanation? This has been a central question in philosophy of science at least since Hempel and Oppenheim’s pivotal attempt at an answer in 1948 (also known as the covering-law model of explanation; Hempel 1965: chapter 10). It is no surprise that this question has retained its place at the heart of contemporary philosophy of science, given that it is one of the sciences’ key aims to provide ...

Explanation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Kitcher
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Logical Empiricism ◽  
General Character ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Covering Law ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Functional Explanations

Philosophical reflections about explanation are common in the history of philosophy, and important proposals were made by Aristotle, Hume, Kant and Mill. But the subject came of age in the twentieth century with the provision of detailed models of scientific explanation, prominently the covering-law model, which takes explanations to be arguments in which a law of nature plays an essential role among the premises. In the heyday of logical empiricism, philosophers achieved a consensus on the covering law model, but, during the 1960s and 1970s, that consensus was challenged through the recognition of four major kinds of difficulty: first, a problem about the relation between idealized arguments and the actual practice of explaining; second, the difficulty of characterizing the underlying notion of a law of nature; third, troubles in accounting for the asymmetries of explanation; and, four, recalcitrant problems in treating statistical explanations. Appreciation of these difficulties has led to the widespread abandonment of the covering-law model, and currently there is no consensus on how to understand explanation. The main contemporary view seeks to characterize explanation in terms of causation, that is, explanations are accounts that trace the causes of the events (states, conditions) explained. Other philosophers believe that there is no general account of explanation, and offer pragmatic theories. A third option sees explanation as consisting in the unification of the phenomena. All of these approaches have associated successes, and face particular anomalies. Although the general character of explanation is now a subject for philosophical debate, some particular kinds of explanation seem to be relatively well understood. In particular, functional explanations in biology, which logical empiricists found puzzling, now appear to be treated quite naturally by supposing them to make tacit reference to natural selection.

Troubles with Mechanisms: Problems of the 'Mechanistic Turn' in Historical Sociology and Social History

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zenonas Norkus
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Social History ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Historical Representation ◽  
Causal Processes ◽  
Covering Law

AbstractThis paper discusses the prospect of the "new social history" guided by the recent work of Charles Tilly on the methodology of social and historical explanation. Tilly advocates explanation by mechanisms as the alternative to the covering law explanation. Tilly's proposals are considered to be the attempt to reshape the practices of social and historical explanation following the example set by the explanatory practices of molecular biology, neurobiology, and other recent "success stories" in the life sciences. Recent work in the philosophy of science on these practices by Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden, Carl Craver and others is used as the foil to disclose the difficulties of Tilly's project. Most important among them is the dilemma of specification: if diagrams (standard forms of the representation of mechanisms) are intended as representations of robust causal processes, they cannot be specific enough to provide complete mechanism schemata, and are bound to remain mechanism sketches. If mechanism sketches are elaborated in detail by tracing particular causal processes, they provide representations of fragile causal processes, which cannot be considered as mechanisms comparable to those in advanced life and other special sciences. Tilly's work on the explanation of mechanisms can be considered as symptomatic for the recent trend to visualize the forms of historical representation. As far as diagrams seem to be able to communicate stories in a direct way (without narrative discourse), this trend is a challenge for the theory of historical representation. The new theories of scientific explanation focusing on the explanatory practices of the life sciences can provide examples and be the source of inspiration for the work on the theory of historical and social explanation, going beyond the confines of the received framework of the covering law model of explanation.

Test Validation Without Measurement

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 204-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilie Lacot ◽  
Mohammad H. Afzali ◽  
Stéphane Vautier
Keyword(s):  
Test Data ◽  
Test Scores ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Test Validation ◽  
Clinical Tests ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Power Of Test ◽  
Memory Accuracy ◽  
Social Uses ◽  
Special Case

Abstract. Test validation based on usual statistical analyses is paradoxical, as, from a falsificationist perspective, they do not test that test data are ordinal measurements, and, from the ethical perspective, they do not justify the use of test scores. This paper (i) proposes some basic definitions, where measurement is a special case of scientific explanation; starting from the examples of memory accuracy and suicidality as scored by two widely used clinical tests/questionnaires. Moreover, it shows (ii) how to elicit the logic of the observable test events underlying the test scores, and (iii) how the measurability of the target theoretical quantities – memory accuracy and suicidality – can and should be tested at the respondent scale as opposed to the scale of aggregates of respondents. (iv) Criterion-related validity is revisited to stress that invoking the explanative power of test data should draw attention on counterexamples instead of statistical summarization. (v) Finally, it is argued that the justification of the use of test scores in specific settings should be part of the test validation task, because, as tests specialists, psychologists are responsible for proposing their tests for social uses.

On Modern Scientific Assessment of the Economic Theory of Marx-Engels-Lenin (Ten Items for Reflection)

2004 ◽  
pp. 111-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Kudrov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Scientific Assessment ◽  
General Law

Substantive provisions of the Marx-Engels-Lenin economic theory in comparison with vital realities of XX century are critically considered in the article. Theories of surplus value, labor value, general law of capitalist accumulation, absolute and relative impoverishment of proletariat are examined. The author points to utopianism and inconsistency of Marx's theory and calls Russian economists for creation of new economic theory adequate to challenges of XXI century.

Thomas Reid on Causation and Scientific Explanation

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Barrantes ◽  
Juan M. Durán
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The Common

We argue that there is no tension between Reid's description of science and his claim that science is based on the principles of common sense. For Reid, science is rooted in common sense since it is based on the (common sense) idea that fixed laws govern nature. This, however, does not contradict his view that the scientific notions of causation and explanation are fundamentally different from their common sense counterparts. After discussing these points, we dispute with Cobb's ( Cobb 2010 ) and Benbaji's ( Benbaji 2003 ) interpretations of Reid's views on causation and explanation. Finally, we present Reid's views from the perspective of the contemporary debate on scientific explanation.

THE SCIENCE OF JUDICIAL PSYCHOLOGY

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-87
Author(s):  
Petru TĂRCHILĂ
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Psychosocial Characteristics ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Behavioral Profile ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Determining Factor ◽  
Determinant Factor

Judicial psychology is the science that analyzes and tries to understand the criminal phenomenon in general and its determinant factor in particular, by the complexity of factors that generate it and by the diversity of its forms of manifestation. Although the determining factor of criminal behavior is always subjective being generated by the psychic of the offender, this aspect must be correlated with the context in which it manifests itself: social, economic, cultural context etc. Judicial psychology investigates the behavior of the individual in all its aspects, seeking a scientific explanation of the mechanisms and factors enhancing criminal favors, thus enabling the identification of the preventive measures to be taken to reduce the categories of offenses. It studies the psycho-behavioral profile of the offender, identifying the causes that determined its behavior in order to take preventive measures.The domain of judicial psychology is mainly deviance, conduct that departs from the moral or legal norms that are dominant in a given culture. The object of judicial psychology is the criminal act, correlated with the psychosocial characteristics of the participants in the judicial action (offender, victim, witness, investigator, magistrate, lawyer, civil party, educator, etc.). The science of judicial psychology also analyzes how these characteristics appear and manifest themselves in concrete and special conditions of their interaction in three phases of the criminal act: the pre-criminal phase, the actual criminal phase and the post-criminal phase.

Professional pathology in the production of aluminum in the Kola Arctic

2020 ◽  
pp. 767-767
Author(s):  
S. A. Syurin ◽  
S. A. Gorbanev
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Occupational Diseases ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Marked Decrease ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Aluminium Production ◽  
First Time

In 2007-2017, 22 occupational diseases were diagnosed for the first time in 18 workers engaged in aluminium production in the Arctic. A marked decrease in occupational morbidity in 2010-2017 was found, which was not associated with changes in working conditions and therefore requires an appropriate scientific explanation.

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