METAPHYSICAL EXPLANATORY ASYMMETRIES

Philosophical Studies, 2020

According to an increasingly popular view among philosophers of science , both causal and non-causal explanations can be accounted for by a single theory: the counterfactual theory of explanation. A kind of non-causal explanation that has gained much attention recently but that this theory seems unable to account for are grounding explanations. Reutlinger (Eur J Philos Sci 7(2):239-256, 2017) has argued that, despite these appearances to the contrary, such explanations are covered by his version of the counterfactual theory. His idea is supported by recent work on grounding by Schaffer and Wilson who claim there to be a tight connection between grounding and counterfactual dependence. The present paper evaluates the prospects of the idea. We show that there is only a weak sense in which grounding explanations convey information about counterfactual dependencies, and that this fact cannot plausibly be taken to reveal a distinctive feature that grounding explanations share with other kinds of explanations.

It is often thought that metaphysical grounding underwrites a distinctive sort of metaphysical explanation. However, it would be a mistake to think that all metaphysical explanations are underwritten by metaphysical grounding. In service of this claim, I offer a novel kind of metaphysical explanation called metaphysical explanation by constraint, examples of which have been neglected in the literature. I argue that metaphysical explanations by constraint are not well understood as grounding explanations.

Synthese, 2019

This paper examines some recent attempts that use counterfactuals to understand the asymmetry of non-causal scientific explanations. These attempts recognize that even when there is explanatory asymmetry, there may be symmetry in counterfactual dependence. Therefore, something more than mere counterfactual dependence is needed to account for explanatory asymmetry. Whether that further ingredient, even if applicable to causal explanation, can fit non-causal explanation is the challenge that explanatory asymmetry poses for counterfactual accounts of non-causal explanation. This paper argues that several recent accounts (Woodward, in: Reutlinger and Saatsi (eds) Explanation beyond causation: philosophical perspectives on non-causal explanations,

2001

0. INTRODUCTION According to the deductive-nomological (D-N) model of explanation, an explanation of a fact consists in its entailment from laws and one or several initial conditions. It fits the following kind of examples nicely. Why did the balloon’s volume decrease? Explanation: When it was submerged in tempered water the pressure increased; and under conditions of constant temperature, PV=k. Among the counter-examples that led to the D-N model’s rejection, the ones building on its inability to account for explanatory asymmetry were especially effective. In the example, the increase in pressure explains the decrease in volume, but the reverse inference from decrease in volume to increase in pressure would not, in this case, be an acceptable explanation. 1 Yet it fits the D-N model as easily as the first one. Such examples from explanatory asymmetry were not only important in this negative sense, they also had the function of promoting an alternative view, the causal model of expl...

Metaphysica, 2011

Arguments from explanation, i.e. arguments in which the explanatory value of a hypothesis or premise is appealed to, are common in science, and explanatory considerations are becoming more popular in metaphysics. The paper begins by arguing that explanatory arguments in science-even when these are metaphysical explanationsmay fail to be explanatory in metaphysics; there is a distinction to be drawn between metaphysical explanation and explanation in metaphysics. This makes it potentially problematic to deploy arguments from explanation in, for instance, metaphysics of science. Part of this problem has its source in that the explanatory concept differs between contexts. The paper discusses a few explanatory concepts and their corresponding arguments from explanation. Towards the end of the paper, I identify two allegedly explanatory arguments in metaphysical discourse by the concluding decisions they give rise to: the rejection of X as a metaphysical fact if X does not explain anything (the argument from explanatory inability) and the rejection of X as a metaphysical fact if X can be non-metaphysically explained (the argument from the non-metaphysically explained). I ask: What kind of concept of explanation do these arguments rely upon, and is that concept suited to the metaphysical task? Two recent examples of these arguments are used as illustration. The preliminary conclusion is that several of the strengths of arguments from explanation in science seem not to be present in metaphysical contexts.

Scientific Explanation, 1989

A seachange has occurred in the study of explanation. l As recently as a decade ago, students of explanation had a fairly standard way of proceeding. They had before them a dominant theory of explanation, CG Hempel's covering-law account. They would begin by ...

Philosophical Studies (forthcoming)

According to a widespread view in metaphysics and philosophy of science (the " Dependence Thesis "), all explanations involve relations of ontic dependence between the items appearing in the explanandum and the items appearing in the explanans. I argue that a family of mathematical cases, which I call " viewing-as explanations " , are incompatible with the Dependence Thesis. These cases, I claim, feature genuine explanations that aren't supported by ontic dependence relations. Hence the thesis isn't true in general. The first part of the paper defends this claim and discusses its significance. I argue, for example, that many mathematical explanations are apparently compatible with Dependence, so the existence of counterexamples is interesting and non-obvious. The second part of the paper considers whether viewing-as explanations occur in the empirical sciences, focusing on the case of so-called fictional models (such as Bohr's model of the atom). It's sometimes suggested that fictional models can be explanatory even though they fail to represent actual worldly dependence relations. Whether or not such models explain, I suggest, depends on whether we think scientific explanations necessarily give information relevant to intervention and control. This paper is about a certain mathematical phenomenon, and its implications for a widely held view about the metaphysics of explanation. I'll say more about the mathematical phenomenon shortly. The widely held view is this: Dependence Thesis: All explanations reflect relations of ontic dependence between the items appearing in the explanandum and the items appearing in the explanans. I plan to argue that a family of mathematical cases, which I'll call " viewing-as explanations " , are incompatible with the Dependence Thesis. These cases, I claim, feature genuine explanations that aren't supported by ontic dependence relations. Hence the Dependence Thesis—which has achieved something approaching consensus status in metaphysics, philosophy of science and elsewhere—is not true in general. The paper is organized as follows. §1 briefly describes the tension between Dependence and viewing-as explanations, and §2 presents some further examples from the mathematical literature. §3 looks more closely at the Dependence Thesis, the challenge posed by the mathematical cases, and several possible responses to the challenge. §4 considers whether viewing-as explanations are possible in the empirical sciences, focusing on the case of so-called fictional models. §5 briefly argues that the counterfactual approach to explanation also has trouble accommodating view-as cases. Finally, I offer some concluding remarks in §6.

Synthese, 2005

Is the nature of explanation a metaphysical issue? Or has it more to do with psychology and pragmatics? To put things in a different way: what are primary relata in an explanation? What sorts of thing explain what other sorts of thing? David Lewis identifies two senses of 'explanation' 217-8). In the first sense, an explanation is an act of explaining. I shall call this the subjectivist sense, since its existence depends on some subject doing the explaining. Hence it is people who, in this sense, explain things. In the second of his two senses, Lewis says, quoting Sylvain Bromberger, that one may properly ask of an explanation "Does anyone know it? Who thought of it first? Is it very complicated?" 218. Bromberger 1965). In this second sense, no subject is needed, the explanation can remain unknown, perhaps for ever. So I call this the objectivist sense.

Maurinian Truths, 2019

The nature of metaphysical explanation is a question that should be constantly on every metaphysician's mind, and yet it is rare to see explicit statements about the methodological approach that writers take. We tend to just enter the flow of ideas and words in a particular 'discourse' and see where it leads us. It is easier that way but can lead us astray. I can't claim to be a role-model in this respect. I have offered a comment here, a remark there, but plenty room for improvement. However, I have come across quite a few confusions that can be traced to failed understanding of method/approach, and one or two really interesting statements of method. Here I share one such confusion about method, and one interesting view about method.

Many think that sentences about what metaphysically explains what are true iff there exist grounding relations. This suggests that sceptics about grounding should be error theorists about metaphysical explanation. We think there is a better option: a theory of metaphysical explanation which offers truth conditions for claims about what metaphysically explains what that are not couched in terms of grounding relations, but are instead couched in terms of, inter alia, psychological facts. We do not argue that our account is superior to grounding-based accounts. Rather, we offer it to those already ill-disposed towards grounding.