Embracing variability and complexity and the explanatory reductionism of scientific realism

We agree with Arocha’s criticism of psychological science’s reliance on statistical procedures that factor out intraindividual variability and the complex dynamics inherent to behavior, as well as with his call for the adoption of a metatheoretical framework that embraces such variability. However, we disagree that scientific realism provides such a framework, given its reductive privileging of certain forms of explanation over others. We advocate, instead, a process-relational paradigm and the explanatory pluralism that it supports, allowing psychological science to more dynamically, and realistically, model individual human behavior.

Descriptive, Explanatory, and Interpretive Approaches

This chapter assesses descriptive, explanatory, and interpretive approaches. ‘Description’, ‘explanation’, and ‘interpretation’ are distinct stages of the research process. Description makes the link between what is to be described and a concept and its empirical referent. It defines a way to understand empirical reality, as variations, significations, or processes. Description refers to the ‘what’ question, as the first step towards explanation. When it comes to answering the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions, some social scientists differentiate between explanation and interpretation. For them, the aim of social sciences is to ‘understand’, that is, to uncover the meanings of individuals’ or groups’ actions through the interpretation of their beliefs and discourses, whereas the aim of natural sciences is to ‘explain’, that is, to establish causality and general laws. The chapter presents an approach which offers a broader perspective for the social sciences, advocating an explanatory pluralism that allows for a more ecumenical approach.

Searching for Non-Causal Explanations in a Sea of Causes

In the spirit of explanatory pluralism, this chapter argues that causal and non-causal explanations of a phenomenon are compatible, each being useful for bringing out different sorts of insights. First the chapter reviews the author’s model-based account of scientific explanation, which can accommodate causal and non-causal explanations alike. Then it distills from the literature an important core conception of non-causal explanation. This non-causal form of model-based explanation is illustrated using the example of how Earth scientists in a subfield known as aeolian geomorphology are explaining the formation of regularly-spaced sand ripples. The chapter concludes that even when it comes to everyday “medium-sized dry goods” such as sand ripples, where there is a complete causal story to be told, one can find examples of non-causal scientific explanations.

Accommodating Explanatory Pluralism

Explanatory pluralism is the view that explanations come in two or more different types. This chapter clarifies two versions of explanatory pluralism and considers two very different attempts to make sense of it. On the one hand, an ontic approach isolates genuine explanations only by appeal to facts that obtain in the world. The most promising way for an ontic approach to accommodate explanatory pluralism is to posit different sorts of objective dependence relations. On the other hand, an epistemic approach requires that features of agents appear in any analysis of what a genuine explanation is. This chapter argues that there is a version of an ontic account and a version of an epistemic account that do make sense of explanatory pluralism in their own terms. At the same time, pluralism raises problems for each approach that require further consideration.