Abstract
Comparisons of rival explanations or theories often involve vague appeals to explanatory power. In this paper, we dissect this metaphor by distinguishing between different dimensions of the goodness of an explanation: non-sensitivity, cognitive salience, precision, factual accuracy and degree of integration. These dimensions are partially independent and often come into conflict. Our main contribution is to go beyond simple stipulation or description by explicating why these factors are taken to be explanatory virtues. We accomplish this by using the contrastive-counterfactual approach to explanation and the view of understanding as an inferential ability. By combining these perspectives, we show how the explanatory power of an explanation in a given dimension can be assessed by showing the range of answers it provides to what-if-things-had-been-different questions and the theoretical and pragmatic importance of these questions. Our account also explains intuitions linking explanation to unification or to exhibition of a mechanism.
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Notes
For example, Peter Lipton says virtually nothing about the criteria that make one explanation better than another (Lipton 2004, pp. 122, 138–140).
We follow the somewhat unfortunate but nevertheless established practice of using “counterfactuals” to refer to all kinds of subjunctive conditionals, regardless of whether the antecedent is true in the actual world or not.
Some authors have argued that fact and foil can be compatible. This claim is based on confusion: the examples cited by these authors are explanations of differences. When the structure of these explanations is explicated, it becomes obvious that we are not explaining why x is A and y is B, but why x is A rather than being B like y (Ylikoski 2007).
In many cases the variable can be regarded as a determinable and its value as its determinant. This idea makes it clear that the fact and its foils are in the same space of alternatives.
It is important to see that two explanations do not have to be exclusive alternatives to each other. In cases of causal overdetermination, both explanations could be true and explanatory, yet it could still be said that one exemplifies explanatory virtues better than another. However, in such cases the comparison is somewhat academic: there is no legitimate epistemic reason to choose one explanation over the other. It is much better to have a more complete explanation that includes both, together with an account of their relationship.
The distinction between competing explanations and competing standards is useful when considering cases of interdisciplinary exchanges like disciplinary imperialism. A discipline can be regarded as a threat to another (and called imperialistic) if (a) it aims to take over the explananda of the other; (b) if it aims to change the standards of explanation by changing the set of paradigmatic examples of good explanations; or (c) it does both of these at the same time. The distinction is important since quite often the criticism of these ambitions is directed at specific explanations, whereas the presenters of these explanations often regard them merely as suggestive examples of the new improved standards.
Theories are often evaluated in terms of their future promise, not their current achievements. However, from the conceptual point of view, the achievement is more fundamental: after all, the promise is about future achievements. An evaluation of future achievements is difficult, leaving room for wishful thinking and other biases. This illusion of explanatory depth can be a very significant feature of explanation-related controversies (Ylikoski 2009).
Adam Morton equates non-sensitivity with causal depth (Morton 2002, pp. 85–87).
Note that this reliability is distinct from the epistemic evaluation of how reliably the explanatory information can be expected to be true in the first place.
Explanation A is strictly less sensitive than explanation B if and only if there is at least one change in background conditions with respect to which A is less sensitive than B and there are no background conditions in which B is less sensitive than A.
In this paper we discuss only individuals as cognitive agents, but our principal points also apply to (socially) distributed cognition and to group cognition. However, in these cases the constraints of cognitive salience can be of different kinds. Cognitive salience is an issue in which empirical sciences of cognition could make an important contribution to the theory of explanation.
Possible exceptions to this claim are cases in which details that are explanatorily irrelevant nonetheless enhance the ability to recognize or recall explanatory information. However, even in such cases, it is important that the person is able to distinguish between these additional factors and proper explanatory factors.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the members of the Philosophy of Science Group (University of Helsinki) for their valuable comments. Jaakko Kuorikoski would also like to thank the Finnish Cultural Foundation for generous support of this research.
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Ylikoski, P., Kuorikoski, J. Dissecting explanatory power. Philos Stud 148, 201–219 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9324-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9324-z