Abstract
This work provides an analysis of van Fraassen’s model of explanation in the theoretical framework of the scientific explanation models. The objective is, first, to see his contribution to this framework and, secondly, what objections or criticism he is capable of. The analysis focuses, in this sense, in exposing the characterization that provides the explanation as a pragmatic virtue to determine if, indeed, the model proposed by van Fraassen, that is the first model to take elements as actors, contexts, and audiences into consideration, can be considered a pragmatic model of explanation. The aim is also to show that the theorisation of explanation incorporates underlying theorisations which determine the way in which explanation is conceptualised within each proposed model.
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Notes
- 1.
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This first statement may seem a rather circular way of explaining the reasons why scientific explanation is the quintessential means of explanation, because it boils down to the classical distinction between description and explanation: science not only describes, it also explains. However, this must be understood in relation to the following statement regarding how it responds to the question “why?.”
- 3.
As we will see later on, this view of explanation, although perhaps the object of almost unanimous agreement at first, has now been called into question by different approaches.
- 4.
In this sense, see Díez and Moulines (1997, 220), who distinguish between “explanation” as an explanation of any meaning, and “explication” as the elucidation of a concept.
- 5.
At least in those cases in which the distinction between description and explanation is assumed and defended, and in which a description is given of the traits which characterise the latter in relation to the former.
- 6.
Or, more specifically, as the author himself points out: “(…) the facts about which it is a theory (van Fraassen 1980, 90).”
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Based on the fact that the basic elements which make up a linguistic situation from a pragmatic perspective are the speaker, the statement or series of statements proposed or expressed, the audience and the factual circumstances, a factor will be pragmatic if it refers to the speaker or the audience; and it will be contextual if it pertains specifically to the particular linguistic situation in question.
- 8.
This does not mean that possessing these fundamental virtues automatically turns a theory into a good explanation. For this, the pragmatic aspect of the explanation is also required. However, what is underscored is that “the epistemic merits a theory may have or must have to figure in good explanations are not sui generis; they are just the merits it had in being empirically adequate, of significant empirical strength, and so forth.” van Fraassen (1980, 88).
- 9.
Examples of this situation would be the absence of an explanation for gravity in the case of Newtonian celestial mechanics, or the debate on hidden variables in quantum mechanics. In this case, the idea of empirical equivalence comes into play. If explanation were a fundamental virtue, it could be argued that when faced with two empirically equivalent theories, that with the greater explanatory capacity should be accepted. However, the scales do not seem to tilt towards placing this capacity in play, unlike that which occurs with the greater or lesser degree of empirical gain.
- 10.
P is a statement, but an explanation is a response, not a statement or an argument, and it is a response to a why-question, thus a theory of explanation must be a theory of said questions, of the questions which ask why. P, on the other hand, establishes the fact to be explained, the explanandum.
- 11.
This clarification would be the result of Aristotelian teaching: the theory of the four causes establishes four types of explanatory relevance relation characteristics, depending on context.
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In van Fraassen (1980, 136), as examples of contextual variables, the author refers to the assumed suppositions, accepted theories, images of the world or paradigms to which subjects adhere in a given context.
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A direct answer is that which provides sufficient information to respond completely to the question; or in other words, a direct answer implies a complete answer.
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This implies that some of the same contextual factors, and specifically R, may appear in the determination of the proposition expressed by.
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When we say because A, we are asserting that A is explanatorily relevant for <Pk, X>.
- 16.
In van Fraassen (1980, 136), as examples of contextual variables, the author refers to the assumed suppositions, accepted theories, images of the world or paradigms to which subjects adhere in a given context.
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Indeed, if one is not willing to accept some of these presuppositions, the question is considered inappropriate, and is therefore rejected.
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These two first suppositions constitute the central presuppositions of Q.
- 19.
The issue of the circumstances under which a why-question arises is central for the author, since he considers the problem of the rejection of demands for explanation to be one of the main obstacles facing the majority of models of explanation. His theory, on the other hand, can account for these rejections: we reject a question of this type by saying that it does not arise in the context. For example, as W. Salmon states in Scientific explanation and the causal structure of the world (1984, p. 105), in Aristotelian physics, we can ask for an explanation of the uniform movement of a body, while in Newtonian physics we ask only about the change in movement. In this context, the question of explaining uniform movement simply does not arise.
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Whether these responses displace A from the topic.
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To put it in a slightly different way, the aim is to reduce the framework knowledge by excluding this part of the information, but without eliminating much more. As the author says (ibid): “In deterministic, non- statistical (what Hempel called a deductive-nomological) explanation, the adduced information implies the fact explained. This implication is relative to our background assumptions, or else those assumptions are part of the adduced information. But clearly, our information that the fact to be explained is actually the case, and all its consequences, must carefully be kept out of those backgrounds assumptions,” if we want to avoid said trivialisation.
- 22.
van Fraassen (1980, 147). This comment generates a surely undesirable, but I believe inevitable, impression for the author, namely that context seems to be a kind of bottom drawer containing a hodgepodge of all that cannot be theorised or which has proven problematic in other theories of explanation, and which is dissolved by a reference to context rather than a fundamental proposal.
- 23.
This paradox shows that any association – P(A/B) = P(A); P(A/B) > P(A); P(A/B) < P(A) – existing between two variables in a given population may be inverted in the subpopulations, with a third variable being found which correlates with both. In this sense, Cartwright (1983, 25), points out that the counter-examples to the statement that causes increase the probability of their effects works in this way. Thus, this increase occurs only in those situations in which this correlation is not found.
- 24.
Adopting the example given by Cartwright (1983, 23–24), of the relationship between smoking and heart disease, van Fraassen states that in response to the question “why does Thomas have heart disease?” the answer “because he smokes” favours the topic that he has heart disease in a direct yet derived sense, because the probabilities of contracting said disease increase if you smoke, regardless of whether or not the smoker engages in physical exercise, and must be one or the other. The author also recognises that it is in the context of this second assessment criterion that both the Hempelian criterion of offering reasons to expect, as well as that of Salmon regarding statistical relevance, can be applied. Salmon (1984, 108–109), agrees that the notion of favouring should admit cases of negative relevance, but rejects the idea that only the favoured members of the contrast class may be explained, because we understand as much (or as little) about the favoured results as we do about the non-favoured ones.
- 25.
Using his own examples — van Fraassen (1980, 150–151) — in the first case, if we know that Paul has just killed Peter and we ask why he is dead, and the answer given is that he received a heavy blow on the head, this is no worse if it is statistically screened off by other types of information; in the second case, we know that there must be a true proposition such as “Peter received a heavy blow on the head with impact x” but this only means that an answer richer in information is possible, not that the given response must be disqualified; and in the third case, if we ask why the system is in state An at the moment tn in response to a determinist process in which state Ai and no other state is followed by state Ai+1, then the best answers to said question may take the form of “because the system was in state Ai at moment ti,” but each of these answers is screened off the event described in the topic by another equally good answer. In this case, if the answer is screened off by another, but not conversely, then the last is better in some respect.
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See the presuppositions of why-questions.
- 27.
In other words, something is, or counts as, an explanation in respect to a certain relevance relation and a certain contrast class. In turn, the fact that both are contextual factors excludes the possibility of thinking that, in cases of scientific explanation, the determination of the relevance of possible hypotheses and said contrast class may be automatic. For van Fraassen, the fact that an explanation is scientific only means that it is based on scientific theories and experiences; the term “scientific” says nothing about its form or about the type of information put forward — this is no different from that offered when a description is requested.
- 28.
van Fraassen (1980, 156). The author’s refusal to characterise relevance relations objectively is absolutely consistent with his concept of explanation.
- 29.
Note that this argument would effectively be valid not only for realists, but also for van Fraassen himself. Where then, does the claim that this commitment is that of the belief that the theory is empirically adequate come from? For van Fraassen, realism is not an ontological thesis, but rather an epistemological one; it is not a thesis about what exists, but rather about what we are justified in believing exists, and his position in this sense, as underscored already, is that by accepting a theory we are justified in believing only in its empirical adequacy, not in its truth.
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As well as the body of knowledge or shared beliefs.
- 31.
Once we have completed an oration-explanation, relativising it to a specific set of alternative hypotheses and to K, the conditions for its assessment do not include terms for an explainer or an audience. In this case, the reference to these concepts is not necessary to understand the meaning of the explanation or to determine whether or not it is true.
- 32.
To my way of thinking, Achinstein’s analysis requires several clarifications, although these do not lead to a conclusion different from that reached by the author. van Fraassen specifies that the basic elements which make up a linguistic situation from a pragmatic perspective are the speaker, the series of statements made, the audience and the factual circumstances, and points out that a factor will be pragmatic if it refers to the speaker or the audience, and contextual if it refers specifically to the linguistic situation in question. It is therefore assumed that the context must include these elements which make it up, and therefore, both the speaker and the audience. The issue, then, seems to be that this inclusion is only presupposed in his model, and this is not enough, since these elements are dispensed with in its articulation. They are only explicitly mentioned in the case of asymmetries, specifically in the account of the tower and the shadow, where reference is made to the intentions, desires and interests of the asker and listener in order to determine the relevance relation. In any case, if emphasis is placed, as Achinstein proposes, on what is, strictly speaking, pragmatic, in accordance also with van Fraassen’s definition, the objection made appears to be justified.
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Santana, M. (2014). Explanation as a Pragmatic Virtue: Bas van Fraassen’s Model. In: Gonzalez, W.J. (eds) Bas van Fraassen’s Approach to Representation and Models in Science. Synthese Library, vol 368. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7838-2_8
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