Table Of ContentTHECONTEXTOFEXPLANATION
BOSTONSTUDIES INTHEPHILOSOPHYOFSCIENCE
Editor
ROBERTS.COHEN,Boston University
EditorialAdvisoryBoard
THOMASF.GLICK,Boston University
ADOLFGRUNBAUM, UniversityofPittsburgh
SAHOTRASARKAR,Boston University
SYLVANS.SCHWEBER,BrandeisUniversity
JOHNJ.STACHEL,Boston University
MARXW.WARTOFSKY,Baruch Collegeof
theCityUniversityofNew York
VOLUME 149
MARTIN BUNZL
Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, U.S.A.
THE CONTEXT OF
EXPLANATION
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataioging-in-PubUcation Data
Bunzl, Martin.
The context of explanation ! Martin Bunzl.
p. cm. -- (Boston stud ies in the ph il osophy of se i ence v.
149)
Inc 1u des b i b 1 i ograph i ca 1 references and index.
ISBN 978-94-010-4760-9 ISBN 978-94-011-1735-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-1735-7
1. Science--Phllosophy. 2. Explanation. I. Title. II. Series.
Q175.B828 1993
501--dc20 92-47382
ISBN 978-94-010-4760-9
printed on acid-free paper
AII Rights Reserved
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from
the copyright owner.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
INTRODUCTION IX
CHAPTER ONE: The Deductive-Nomological Model Briefly
Revisited 1
CHAPTERTWO: CausalConception andCausalConnection 11
CHAPTERTHREE: Identity and Unification 30
CHAPTERFOUR: Pragmatics 42
CHAPTERAVE: Staticsand Dynamics 59
CHAPTERSIX: Supervenienceand Reductionism 73
CHAPTERSEVEN: Laws 85
CHAPTEREIGHT: Interpretation 98
CHAPTERNINE: CausalFactuals 111
NOTES 131
REFERENCES 148
INDEX 155
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the kind and constructive support of
numerous people who helped me in this manuscript: Nancy Atkinson,
Jerry Aronson, Deborah Hertz, Rom Harre, Peter Kivy, Nicholas
Rescher and Bill Ruddick all read the manuscript at different stages.
To the extent that I accepted their advice the manuscript is betterthan
it would have been. Still, I did not accept all of their advice. My
recalcitrance will explain the inadequacies that the reader will find in
whatfollows.
This work was supported, in part, by a paid faculty leave provided
by Rutgers University in 1988. Thanks are also due to the director of
the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, for giving me the use ofthe facility
and moreimportantly, food inthe wonderful lunch room.
Earlierversions ofsome ofthe chapters thatfollow were previously
published in the Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior,
Erkenntnis, andtheAmericanPhilosophicalQuarterly.
My thanks to Justine Kingsbury for editorial assistance as well as
workonthe index and bibliography.
vii
INTRODUCTION
The Philosophy of Science has almost no "grand" questions today.
Most of the work has to do with concerns that are quite discipline
specific. Of course, there was a time when, driven by the interest in
the unity of science thesis, a few central questions defined the field.
Many ofthese questions (including that ofthe unity of science thesis
itself) have fallen by the wayside. Nonetheless questions about the
natureofexplanationhave hadaremarkable resilienceovertime.
For the past forty or so years, the history of explanation has been
the history of the Deductive-Nomological model. That model of
explanation has dominated the literature so much that it is hard to
think ofhow to organize the geography ofthe area without placing it
at the center. Whether philosophers agree or disagree with the model,
by and large they have defined their work in relation to it. That is true
not only for emendations and extensions of the model but also for
alternativesto it. This is abookaboutthesealternatives.\
I argue that the study ofthese alternatives lends supportto two very
general claims about the nature ofexplanation. The first claim is that,
given the variety ofinterests thatpromptexplanations in science, there
can be no successful, comprehensive, direct alternative to the
Deductive-Nomological model. (By a 'direct alternative', I mean a
model of explanation itself.) Instead, I argue, to the extent that any
theory of explanation aspires to comprehensiveness, it will end up
being one step removed from direct alternatives to the Deductive-
IX
x INTRODUcnON
Nomological model. That is to say, it will have to range over such
models.
The second claim is that any successful account of explanation
must deal with two very different contexts - one static and one
dynamic. Traditionally, theories ofexplanation have been built for the
former ofthese two contexts. That is to say, they aredesigned to show
how it is that a "finished" body of scientific knowledge can be put to
explanatory use. But finished sciences are few and far between, as are
explanations developed in the way envisioned. Real "explanation" (if
we allow it to count as such) occurs in a dynamical context in which
questions are asked and answers are given as theories are in the
process of being constructed. Here, I argue that attending to explana
tion produced under these dynamic circumstances undermines
prominent features of the theory of explanation produced in the
traditional static situation.
In Chapter One I briefly review the outlines of the Deductive
Nomological model. I focus on a sociological puzzle. Most
philosophers think that the model is wrong. Yet it refuses to die. I try
to explain why this is the case by arguing that comprehensive alterna
tives to the Deductive-Nomological model mustamend what Icall the
conception of explanation or the nature of explanatory connection of
which the model makes use. With this in mind, in Chapters Two and
Three I consider three versions ofexplanation: one in which explana
tion relies on causal considerations, a second in which it relies on
identity relations, and a third in which it relies on considerations of
unification. Each ofthese three positions aspires to be comprehensive
in nature with regard to explanation, even ifthe claimis attenuated by
restriction to a class of "important" explanations. This makes for
conflict. Resolving the conflict prompts a separation ofthe interest in
a comprehensive accountofexplanation from the details ofthe model.
I conclude that there can be no successful comprehensive direct
alternative to the Deductive-Nomological model of explanation.
Instead, I argue, to be comprehensive, a general account of explana-
INTRODUCI10N Xl
tion must be one that ranges over different specific models. Making
such a general account work requires consideration of so-called
pragmatic accounts of explanation that incorporate the questions that
promptexplanations. Itake these issues up in ChapterFour. There is a
traditional tension between the formal features of nonpragmatic
accounts and the open-ended quality of pragmatic accounts. At the
close of the chapter I try to effect a synthesis between these two
approaches by arguing that there is less ofa difference between them
than meets the eye. But, in Chapter Five, I argue that the result turns
out to be a position that requires attention to the distinction between
explaining with a completed theory in hand and explaining with a
theory that is still underconstruction. Explanation in the lattercontext
turns out to be a much more complicated affair. In Chapters Six and
Seven the implications of the analysis are applied to issues of reduc
tionism. I argue that antireductionism in psychology is a function of
our views of explanation. Thus a change in our view of explanation
can undermine our views about antireductionism. However, making
such a change turns out to force a change in our views about laws as
well. In Chapters Eight and Nine, the account is extended and
elaborated in a discussion ofexplanation in the social sciences and an
analysis ofthecausal relation.
Like so much of the rest of philosophy, in matters of explanation
one is always caught in two traditional dialectics. One is a matter of
scope: should we study what passes for explanation or what should
pass? And ifthe latter, "should"by whose lights? Thoseofphilosophy
or those of science? Second, should we aim for a unitary account or
tolerate heterogeneity? To me the art of good argument involves
striking a balance on these questions. Prescriptivism without attention
to practice becomes divorced from science. Yet descriptivism without
prescriptivism is better left to sociologists of science. The same
considerations apply to the tension between a unified account and one
that embraces heterogeneity. Excessive tolerance simply allows for a
plethora of disparate phenomena. Interest arises to the extent that we
xii INTRODUCTION
can find unity in the variety at some level of analysis. For lurking in
the background there is always the temptation to abandon the whole
enterpriseas ultimately unilluminating.
