Explaining explanation

In Explaining Explanation, David-Hillel Ruben provides a nontechnical discussion of some of the main historical attempts to explain the concept of explanation, examining the works of Plato, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, and CarlHempel. Building on and developing the insights of these historical figures, he concludes with his own original and challenging view of explanation. He relates the concept of explanation to both epistemological and metaphysical issues. Not content to confine the concept to the realm of the philosophy of science, Ruben examines it within a far more broadly conceived theory of knowledge. This second edition of the influential and highly acclaimed book on the philosophy of explanation has been revised and expanded, and the author has made substantial changes in light of the extensive reviews the first edition received.DAVID-HILLEL RUBEN is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of London. Most recently, he has published numerous articles in action theory and the philosophy of science. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 Preface and Acknowledgments 10 Preface to the Second Edition 12 I Getting our Bearings 14 Some explanations 16 Process and product 19 The methodology of explaining explanation 21 Restricting the scope of the analysis 26 Scientific and ordinary explanation 27 Partial and full explanation 30 Bad explanations and no explanations 32 Some terminology 34 Theories of explanation 36 Dispensing with contrastives 48 II Plato on Explanation 54 The Phaedo 55 Platonic explanantia and explananda 60 Problems for the physical explainers 61 Some terminology 64 Plato’s Principles 66 Plato’s (PP2) 71 Plato’s (PP1) 73 The Theaetetus 78 Summary 81 III Aristotle on Explanation 82 The doctrine of the four causes 82 Does Aristotle have a general account of explanation? 87 Incidental and per se causes 91 Necessitation and laws in explanation 96 Aristotle on scientific explanation 98 Aristotle’s demonstrations 103 Summary 110 IV Mill and Hempel on Explanation 111 Mill’s account of explanation: laws of coexistence and succession 115 Mill’s account of explanation: the symmetry thesis 123 Mill on ultimate explanations 124 Mill on deduction and explanation 128 Hempel’s account of scientific explanation 136 Hempel’s methodology 139 Hempel on the symmetry thesis 142 Hempel on inductive-statistical explanation 145 Hempel on epistemic ambiguity 148 Summary 150 V The Ontology of Explanation 152 Explanation and epistemology 152 Extensionality and the slingshot 152 The relata of the explanation relation 156 Explaining facts 163 The non-extensionality of facts 166 Facts: worldly or wordy? 167 The co-typical predicate extensionality of facts 168 The name transparency of facts 172 Addendum on Gideon Rosen’s conception of facts 175 VI Arguments, Laws, and Explanation 179 The standard counterexamples: irrelevance 180 The standard counterexamples: symmetry 188 A proposed cure and its problems: the causal condition 189 Generalizations get their revenge 202 VII A Realist Theory of Explanation 206 Are all singular explanations causal explanations? 208 What would make an explanation non-causal? 213 Identity and explanation 214 Are there other non-causal singular explanations? 218 Disposition explanations 221 Again: determinative, high dependency, and low dependency explanations 225 Postscript on Gideon Rosen 227 Notes 230 Bibliography 248 Reviews of the First Edition of Explaining Explanation 253 Name Index 254 Subject Index 256 About the Author 259 In Explaining Explanation, David-Hillel Ruben provides a nontechnical discussion of some of the main historical attempts to explain the concept of explanation, examining the works of Plato, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, and Carl Hempel. Building on and developing the insights of these historical figures, he concludes with his own original and challenging view of explanation. He relates the concept of explanation to both epistemological and metaphysical issues. Not content to confine the concept to the realm of the philosophy of science, Ruben examines it within a far more broadly conceived theory of knowledge. This second edition of the influential and highly acclaimed book on the philosophy of explanation has been revised and expanded, and the author has made substantial changes in light of the extensive reviews the first edition received. Book jacket This second edition of David-Hillel Ruben's influential and highly acclaimed book on the philosophy of explanation has been revised and expanded, and the author has made substantial changes in light of the extensive reviews the first edition received. Ruben's views on the place of laws in explanation has been refined and clarified. What is perhaps the central thesis of the book, his realist view of explanation, describing the way in which explanation depends on metaphysics, has been updated and extended and engages with some of the work in this area published since the book's first edition. Fully updated and expanded edition of the influential book on the philosophy of explanation, including ideas from Plato, Aristotle and JS Mill. By David-hillel Ruben. Includes Bibliographical References And Indexes.