Synthese 194 (9):3501-3521 (2017)
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Abstract |
In the current literature on scientific explanation unification became unfashionable in favour of causal approaches. We want to bring unification back into the picture. In this paper we demonstrate that resemblance questions do occur in scientific practice and that they cannot be properly answered without unification. Our examples show that resemblance questions about particular facts demand what we call causal network unification, while resemblance questions about regularities require what we call mechanism unification. We clarify how these types of unification relate to Philip Kitcher’s account, but also to causal and mechanistic accounts of explanation
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Keywords | Causal network unification Kitcher’s account of unification Mechanism unification Resemblance questions |
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DOI | 10.1007/s11229-015-0969-9 |
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References found in this work BETA
Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation.James Woodward - 2003 - Oxford University Press.
Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World.Wesley C. Salmon - 1984 - Princeton University Press.
Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience.Carl F. Craver - 2007 - Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press.
Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science.Carl Gustav Hempel - 1965 - New York: The Free Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Scientific Explanation and Trade-Offs Between Explanatory Virtues.Alirio Rosales & Adam Morton - 2021 - Foundations of Science 26 (4):1075-1087.
Quantum mechanical atom models, legitimate explanations and mechanisms.Erik Weber, Merel Lefevere & Kristian Gonzalez Barman - 2021 - Foundations of Chemistry 23 (3):407-429.
Rethinking Unification : Unification as an Explanatory Value in Scientific Practice.Merel Lefevere - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Ghent
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