Resisting Explanation

Argumentation 14 (4):361-380 (2000)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Although explanation is widely regarded as an important concept in the study of rational inquiry, it remains largely unexplored outside the philosophy of science. This, I believe, is not due to oversight as much as to institutional resistance. In analytic philosophy it is basic that epistemic rationality is a function of justification and that justification is a function of argument. Explanation, however, is not argument nor is belief justification its function. I argue here that the task of incorporating explanation into the theory of rational inquiry poses a serious challenge to our basic concept of epistemic rationality as well as the a priori method of inquiry that still lies at the heart of analytic philosophy. Specifically, it pushes us toward a much stronger form of naturalism than is generally thought necessary, one in which argument and explanation are recognized as distinct and equally fundamental cognitive processes whose dynamic relationship is one of the central issues in the theory of rationality.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Explanation and rationality naturalized.David Henderson - 2010 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 40 (1):30-58.
Philosophy of science: From justification to explanation.Aharon Kantorovich - 1988 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (4):469-494.
Laws, causality and the intentional explanation of action.Zhu Xu - 2010 - Frontiers of Philosophy in China 5 (2):280-293.
The Limits of Explanation.Richard Swinburne - 1990 - Philosophy 27 (Supplement):177 - 193.
The functions of fossils: Inference and explanation in functional morphology.Derek Turner - 2000 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 31 (1):193-212.
The (Alleged) Inherent Normativity of Technological Explanations.Jeroen De Ridder - 2006 - Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 10 (1):79-94.
Functional analysis.Robert E. Cummins - 1975 - Journal of Philosophy 72 (November):741-64.
On (Some) Explanations in Physics.James Owen Weatherall - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (3):421-447.
The Ontology of Explanation.David-Hillel Ruben - 1989 - In Fred D'Agostino & I. C. Jarvie (eds.), Freedom and Rationality. Reidel. pp. 67--85.
Dispositions, explanation, and behavior.Laird Addis - 1981 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 24 (2):205 – 227.
Explanation in Metaphysics?Johannes Persson - 2011 - Metaphysica 12 (2):165-181.
Empathy, Rationality, and Explanation.Mark Bevir & Karsten Stueber - 2011 - Journal of the Philosophy of History 5 (2):147-162.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-09-12

Downloads
127 (#132,687)

6 months
5 (#246,492)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas Samuel Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Otto Neurath.
The aim and structure of physical theory.Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem - 1954 - Princeton,: Princeton University Press.
The scientific image.C. Van Fraassen Bas - 1980 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 24 references / Add more references