By reducing the explanatory power of theories to their unifying power, unificationism seems the best candidate for a theory of explanatory relevance. I argue that Philip Kitcher's version of unificationism, which relies on the central concept of an argument pattern, can in principle not live up to such an expectation, because his notion of stringency, which is needed to distinguish between genuine and spurious unifications, relies on a prior notion of explanatory relevance.

The paper investigates the question as to which features of hypotheses make them explanatory. Given the intuitive appeal of causal explanations, one might suspect that explanatoriness is deeply connected with causation. I argue in detail that this is wrong by showing that none of the dominant analyses of causation are suited for general accounts of explanatoriness. In the second part, I provide the outlines of an account of explanatoriness that connects it with scientific understanding, which in turn is argued to (...) be analyzable as the cognitive realization of scientific models. (shrink)

Analyzing epistemic sophistication in terms of the stringency of a person’s standards, her skills in using evidence, and her wisdom in employing proper standards, this book argues for a radical conception of epistemology as being concerned with the duties that arise during the process of belief formation.

Why should anybody care about theoretical simplicity? It is pretty clear that simpler theories don't stand a better chance of being true, just because they are simpler than their competitors. Of course, simpler theories are easier to use in technological applications, and they are more tractable. But that is something engineers should be concerned about. Why should the theoretical scientist be interested in simple theories? ;The principal virtue of simple theories is their facilitation of scientific understanding in virtue of their (...) greater explanatory power. Simple theories are more unified, and they allow important kinds of reasoning about the world. If a theory yields a unified but structure-rich picture of the world, and thereby a high degree of understanding, we can design relevant experiments, form rational expectations, and in general are in a better position to gather relevant data than when we confront the world without any understanding whatsoever. Simple theories are therefore, in virtue of increasing our understanding, epistemically advantageous. That's why the theoretical scientist should be interested in simple theories. ;Of course, since the choice of simple theories does not guarantee getting closer to the truth, the claim that such a choice is epistemically advantageous presupposes that we draw a distinction between the explanatory power of theories and their accuracy. This distinction has not received sufficient attention in the existing literature, and that's why it was so difficult to say exactly what the virtue of simple theories is. Recognizing that explanatory power and accuracy are orthogonal aspects of scientific theories allows us to assign simplicity the role of facilitating understanding and thereby guiding controlled experimentation. (shrink)

You are an unusual student. We'd be surprised if 1% of STEM majors (or even most philosophy majors) take a course in the philosophy of science. And this is an unusual book in three ways which we hope will provide a readable college text. First, most philosophy of science texts are written for philosophy majors. While this book will provide them with a solid foundation, our goal is to provide STEM majors with a relevant book. But why would they seek (...) such a text? Imagine that there is an opera singer who hits every note, but she has no understanding of the composition. Is she truly a musician or just a performer? In German, a musiker has a deep understanding of music, while a musikant merely plays music. Understanding the philosophy of science is necessary to become a scientifiker rather than a scientifikant (these terms don't really exist but you get the idea). (shrink)