Abstract
The so-called missing explanation argument, put forward by Mark Johnston in the late 80’s purported to show that our ordinary concepts of secondary qualities such as the colours cannot be response-dependent. A number of flaws were soon found in the argument. Partly in response to the criticism directed at the original argument, Johnston presented a new version in 1998. In this paper I show that the new version fails, too, for a simple reason: the kind of explanation which Johnston claims to be incompatible with a response-dependent account of the relevant concept is not an empirical explanation at all, but merely looks like one because of certain factors in Johnston’s stage- setting for the argument.
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Manuscript submitted 25 October 2004
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Haukioja, J. Why the New Missing Explanation Argument Fails, Too. Erkenntnis 64, 169–175 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-005-4309-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-005-4309-1