Discussion Grounds

Tom,

You proposed an approach to explanation such that “x contributes to the explanation of y if” it meets three criteria. Your first criterion was:

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

But this is problematic because it requires that any proposed explanation also be a successful explanation. Consider the phlogiston theory of combustion. I think this theory should at least be “in the running.” We reject it not because it cannot be an explanation for combustion, but because it fares more poorly on our list of explanatory virtues than the modern theory of combustion. Your criteria (A) requires that we only ever consider theories that are correct, but of course we can’t know which theory is correct until we can compare them!

We could modify your criterion like so:

(A*) if x were true, then by knowing x we would better understand y than by not knowing x

This works better, I think, but there is still a problem. Explanation is generally thought to be positing the cause of an event. And yet your criterion would be fulfilled by “explanations” that merely help us understand the effects of x. Suppose that y = “The murder of John Dominic.” And I offer x = “Upon his murder, John Dominic’s body did not decay because the court ordered that his body be preserved.” Now this x certainly helps us understand y better, and it also could score extremely well on your other criteria and explanatory virtues, but it would do nothing to “explain” our x, the murder of John Dominic.

And there is another problem with your approach to explanation. You say that “we assess whether x fulfills (A), (B), and (C) by reference to a set of explanatory virtues…” But this is too vague. That’s why I prefer my criterion of:

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

But my account of explanation has problems, too. I said that for H to be even a potential explanation of E, it must be true that “if H were true, then E would be a matter of course.” But as commenter Richard Wein points out, this account doesn’t allow for explanations involving chance.

Suppose we want to explain why E = “Person P won the lottery.” It seems the best explanation we can offer would be something like H = “P bought a ticket. The choice of the winning ticket was random, but according to the rules of the game some ticket-holder had to win. And P was a ticket-holder.” That sounds like not just a potential explanation of E, but a good explanation of E. And yet according to my definition it is not even a potential explanation, for E does not follow as a matter of course from H. In fact, it is extremely unlikely that E would follow from H, assuming we are talking about a lottery involving millions of tickets.

The issues of explanation and chance have been discussed at length by Railton, Batterman, Strevens, and others. Also see sections 2.3 and 3.2 of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Scientific Explanation.

I don’t think you or I will be able to solve the problems of explanation or even understanding - both of which are difficult – in the course of our debate. I just hope we can settle on some agreeable account of explanation so that we can then argue whether naturalism or Christianity offers the superior explanation of the human condition and other phenomena. Even still, offering explanations may not be the end of it. Explanations are like salted peanuts: “Getting one doesn’t make you stop asking for one; usually just the reverse is true.”

What do you think?