Discussion Grounds

Tom,

I should have asked about this last time, but I’m still a little unclear about what you mean by offering the following criterion for x as an explanation for y:

(A) by knowing x we understand y better than by not knowing x

To “understand” something means “to perceive and comprehend the nature and significance of” something. So I guess that positing Zeus as the cause of lightning would help me understand that the nature of lightning is such that it has a supernatural cause hiding behind its proximate natural cause, and that each lightning bolt has a telos, as determined by the will of Zeus. Zeus sends each lightning bolt for a reason. So knowing that Zeus causes lightning helps me understand lightning better than I would if I did not know that Zeus causes lightning.

Have I got that right?

There’s also the problem of the word “know,” which assumes that x is true (since “knowledge” is considered to be “justified true belief,” ignoring Gettier problems). So maybe we could use:

(A) by positing x we understand y better than by not knowing x

But even the word “understand” presents a problem. Let’s say that the Ancient Greeks had good reason to believe that Zeus was the cause of lightning, and there were no competing hypotheses. But let’s say that Zeus did not, in fact, exist. Could we then say that by positing Zeus these fictional people understood lightning better than by not positing Zeus? I think it would be more proper to say that by positing Zeus they misunderstood lightning. The reason for this is that “understand” is a success term, at least to my ears.

I might be able to propose a less problematic account of explanation by making use of C.S. Peirce’s abductive schema:

(1) The surprising fact, E, is observed.

(2) But if H were true, E would be a matter of course,

(3) Hence, there is reason to suspect that H is true.¹

Any H that fits in (2) I will call a potential explanation. Given that, may I suggest:

H is a good explanation of E if:

(A) H is a potential explanation of E; and if

(B) H possesses the following explanatory virtues to a greater degree than any competing potential explanations of E:

1. Testability – a good explanatory hypothesis should be testable.
2. Consistency with background knowledge – a good explanatory hypothesis should not contradict our background knowledge.
3. Past explanatory success – a good explanatory hypothesis should fit in a tradition with much past explanatory success.
4. Simplicity – a good explanatory hypothesis should be simple, not making a lot of ad-hoc assumptions.
5. Ontological simplicity – a good explanatory hypothesis should not add more unknown things to our ontology than necessary.
6. Informativeness – a good explanatory hypothesis should allow us to deduce precise details of its effects.

How does that sound?

Luke

1. Peirce: Collected Papers 5.189. Peirce used letters C and A, but I use E for evidence and H for hypothesis. My approach to explanation here mirrors that of Gregory Dawes in Theism and Explanation. [↩]