The paper provides a systematic overview of recent debates in epistemology and philosophy of science on the nature of understanding. We explain why philosophers have turned their attention to understanding and discuss conditions for “explanatory” understanding of why something is the case and for “objectual” understanding of a whole subject matter. The most debated conditions for these types of understanding roughly resemble the three traditional conditions for knowledge: truth, justification and belief. We discuss prominent views about how to construe these (...) conditions for understanding, whether understanding indeed requires conditions of all three types and whether additional conditions are needed. (shrink)

This paper is a response to McKenzie (2017). I argue that the case she presents is not a genuine counterexample to the thesis she labels Brute Fundamentalism. My response consists of two main points. First, that the support she presents for considering her case a metaphysical explanation is misguided. Second, that there are principled reasons for doubting that partial explanations in Hempel’s sense, of which her case is an instance, are genuinely explanatory in the first place. Thus McKenzie’s attack on (...) Brute Fundamentalism fails. (shrink)

In recent years, scientific understanding has become a focus of attention in philosophy of science. Since understanding is typically associated with the pragmatic and psychological dimensions of explanation, shifting the focus from explanation to understanding may induce a shift from accounts that embody normative ideals to accounts that provide accurate descriptions of scientific practice. Not surprisingly, many ‘friends of understanding’ sympathize with a naturalistic approach to the philosophy of science. However, this raises the question of whether the proposed theories of (...) understanding can still have normative power. In this paper I address this question by examining two theories of scientific understanding: Jan Faye’s pragmatic-rhetorical theory and my own contextual theory of scientific understanding. I argue that both theories leave room for normativity, despite their naturalistic tendencies. The normative power of my contextual theory is illustrated with a case study of the chemical revolution. (shrink)

There are many putative counterexamples to the view that all scientific explanations are causal explanations. Using a new theory of what it is to be a causal explanation, Bradford Skow has recently argued that several of the putative counterexamples fail to be non-causal. This paper defends some of the counterexamples by showing how Skow’s argument relies on an overly permissive theory of causal explanations.

PurposeIn this article, we aim to present and defend a contextual approach to mathematical explanation.MethodTo do this, we introduce an epistemic reading of mathematical explanation.ResultsThe epistemic reading not only clarifies the link between mathematical explanation and mathematical understanding, but also allows us to explicate some contextual factors governing explanation. We then show how several accounts of mathematical explanation can be read in this approach.ConclusionThe contextual approach defended here clears up the notion of explanation and pushes us towards a pluralist vision (...) on mathematical explanation. (shrink)

We present a Bayesian analysis of the epistemology of analogue experiments with particular reference to Hawking radiation. Provided such experiments can be externally validated via universality arguments, we prove that they are confirmatory in Bayesian terms. We then provide a formal model for the scaling behaviour of the confirmation measure for multiple distinct realisations of the analogue system and isolate a generic saturation feature. Finally, we demonstrate that different potential analogue realisations could provide different levels of confirmation. Our results thus (...) provide a basis both to formalise the epistemic value of analogue experiments that have been conducted and to advise scientists as to the respective epistemic value of future analogue experiments. (shrink)

In this article we argue for the existence of ‘analogue simulation’ as a novel form of scientific inference with the potential to be confirmatory. This notion is distinct from the modes of analogical reasoning detailed in the literature, and draws inspiration from fluid dynamical ‘dumb hole’ analogues to gravitational black holes. For that case, which is considered in detail, we defend the claim that the phenomena of gravitational Hawking radiation could be confirmed in the case that its counterpart is detected (...) within experiments conducted on diverse realizations of the analogue model. A prospectus is given for further potential cases of analogue simulation in contemporary science. 1 Introduction2 Physical Background2.1 Hawking radiation in semi-classical gravity2.2 Modelling sound in fluids2.3 The acoustic analogue model of Hawking radiation3 Simulation and Analogy in Physical Theory3.1 Analogical reasoning and analogue simulation3.2 Confirmation via analogue simulation3.3 Recapitulation4 The Sound of Silence: Analogical Insights into Gravity4.1 Experimental realization of analogue models4.2 Universality and the Hawking effect4.3 Confirmation of gravitational Hawking radiation5 Prospectus. (shrink)

A primary goal of quantum computer science is to find an explanation for the fact that quantum computers are more powerful than classical computers. In this paper I argue that to answer this question is to compare algorithmic processes of various kinds and to describe the possibility spaces associated with these processes. By doing this, we explain how it is possible for one process to outperform its rival. Further, in this and similar examples little is gained in subsequently asking a (...) how-actually question. Once one has explained how-possibly, there is little left to do. (shrink)

In what sense are the activities and properties of components in a mechanism explanatorily relevant to the behavior of a mechanism as a whole? I articulate this problem, the problem of constitutive relevance, and I show that it must be solved if we are to understand mechanisms and mechanistic explanation. I argue against some putative solutions to the problem of constitutive relevance, and I sketch a positive account according to which relevance is analyzed in terms ofrelationships of mutual manipulability between (...) the behavior of a mechanism as a whole and the properties and activities of its components. My account is a causal-mechanical account in the sense that it is a particular expression of the idea that constitutive explanation is a matter of showing how an explanandum phenomenon is situated within the causal structure of the world. It is thus offered as a rival to epistemic (argument-centered) and psychological accounts of interlevel explanation. (shrink)

Completeness is an important but misunderstood norm of explanation. It has recently been argued that mechanistic accounts of scientific explanation are committed to the thesis that models are complete only if they describe everything about a mechanism and, as a corollary, that incomplete models are always improved by adding more details. If so, mechanistic accounts are at odds with the obvious and important role of abstraction in scientific modelling. We respond to this characterization of the mechanist’s views about abstraction and (...) articulate norms of completeness for mechanistic explanations that have no such unwanted implications. _1_ Introduction _2_ A Balancing Act: When Do Details Matter? _3_ The Norms of Causal Explanation _4_ The Norms of Constitutive Explanation _5_ Salmon-Completeness _6_ From More Details to More Relevant Details _7_ Non-explanatory Virtues of Abstraction _8_ From Explanatory Models to Explanatory Knowledge _9_ Mechanistic Completeness Reconsidered _10_ Conclusion. (shrink)

Supervenience is a relationship which has been used recently to explain the physical determination of biological phenomena despite resistance to reduction. Supervenience, however, is plagued by ambiguities which weaken its explanatory value and obscure some interesting aspects of reduction in biology. Although I suspect that similar considerations affect the use of supervenience in ethics and the philosophy of mind, I don’t intend anything I have to say here to apply outside of the physical and biological cases I consider.The main point (...) of this paper is that there is a property of biological systems which makes it both misleading and inappropriate to reduce central biological phenomena to the properties of underlying components. Despite this, reductive explanation has been a major source of innovation in biological theory. The apparent tension can be resolved if underlying properties are explanatorily relevant to the higher level phenomena even though the latter are not strictly reducible to the former. Supervenience, I will argue, is not robust enough to deny reduction while supporting explanatory relevance. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Quine''s indispensability argument, with particular emphasis on what is meant by ''indispensable''. I show that confirmation theory plays a crucial role in answering this question and that once indispensability is understood in this light, Quine''s argument is seen to be a serious stumbling block for any scientific realist wishing to maintain an anti-realist position with regard to mathematical entities.

In 1993, biologist Margie Profet captured the attention of the popular press with the publication of her radical thesis: menstruation has a function. Traditional theories, she claims, typically view menstruation as a functionless by-product of cyclic flux. The details of Profet's functional account are similarly radical: she argues that menstruation has been naturally selected to defend the female reproductive tract from sperm-borne pathogens. There are a number of weaknesses in Profet's evolutionary analysis. However, I focus on a set of pragmatic (...) problems that arise prior to any details of her evolutionary account. In arguing for the importance of pragmatic considerations, I draw from the linguistic analyses of Nelson Goodman. I conclude that critical investigation of the evolutionary details of Profet's pathogen defense account will be more feasible if and when biologists more frequently feature the female system of pathogen defense in their inductive generalisations. The system needs to be better entrenched before its functional components, such as menstruation, can be thoroughly investigated. (shrink)

Elizabeth Prior claims that dispositional predicates are incomplete in the sense that they have more than one argument place. To back up this claim, she offers a number of arguments that involve such ordinary dispositional predicates as ‘fragile’, ‘soluble’, and so on. In this paper, I will first demonstrate that one of Prior’s arguments that ‘is fragile’ is an incomplete predicate is mistaken. This, however, does not immediately mean that Prior is wrong that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. On the (...) contrary, I maintain that she has offered another valid argument that does indeed establish the claim that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. I will argue further that Prior is right that ‘soluble’ is an incomplete predicate. Then does this mean that all dispositional predicates are incomplete? I don’t think so. I will suggest that there are complete dispositional predicates that have no more than one argument place. Finally, by relying on my discussion of the incompleteness of dispositional predicates, I will attempt to provide a better understanding of the context-dependence and intrinsic nature of dispositional ascriptions. (shrink)

Reasoning in medicine requires the critical use of a clinical methodology whose validity must be evaluated as well as its limits. In the last decade, an increasing amount of evidence has shown severe limitations and flaws in the conduct of prognostic studies. The main reason behind this fact is that prognostic judgments are at high risk of error. In this paper we investigate the pragmatic and illocutionary aspects of different forms of linguistic acts and judgments involved in clinical practice. More (...) specifically, we analyze the role of uncertainty with regard to ‘particular’ clinical judgments and its relation with ‘general’ evidence. Focusing on how prognostic judgments are formulated and justified, our main purpose is to highlight the explication, the structure and the limits of prognosis from a linguistic and epistemological perspective. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the relationship between Inference to the Best Explanation and Bayesianism, both of which are well-known accounts of the nature of scientific inference. In Sect. 2, I give a brief overview of Bayesianism and IBE. In Sect. 3, I argue that IBE in its most prominently defended forms is difficult to reconcile with Bayesianism because not all of the items that feature on popular lists of “explanatory virtues”—by means of which IBE ranks competing explanations—have confirmational import. (...) Rather, some of the items that feature on these lists are “informational virtues”—properties that do not make a hypothesis \ more probable than some competitor \ given evidence E, but that, roughly-speaking, give that hypothesis greater informative content. In Sect. 4, I consider as a response to my argument a recent version of compatibilism which argues that IBE can provide further normative constraints on the objectively correct probability function. I argue that this response does not succeed, owing to the difficulty of defending with any generality such further normative constraints. Lastly, in Sect. 5, I propose that IBE should be regarded, not as a theory of scientific inference, but rather as a theory of when we ought to “accept” H, where the acceptability of H is fixed by the goals of science and concerns whether H is worthy of commitment as research program. In this way, IBE and Bayesianism, as I will show, can be made compatible, and thus the Bayesian and the proponent of IBE can be friends. (shrink)

A consensus exists among contemporary philosophers of biology about the history of their field. According to the received view, mainstream philosophy of science in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s focused on physics and general epistemology, neglecting analyses of the 'special sciences', including biology. The subdiscipline of philosophy of biology emerged (and could only have emerged) after the decline of logical positivism in the 1960s and 70s. In this article, I present bibliometric data from four major philosophy of science journals (Erkenntnis, (...) Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science), covering 1930-59, which challenge this view. (shrink)

Many philosophers think that the Substitution Objection decisively refutes Russellianism. This objection claims that sentences (1) and (2) can differ in truth value. Therefore, it says, the sentences express different propositions, and so Russellianism is false.

Russellianism (also called `neo-Russellianism, `Millianism, and `thenaive theory') entails that substitution of co-referring names inattitude ascriptions preserves truth value and proposition expressed.Thus, on this view, if Lucy wants Twain to autograph her book, thenshe also wants Clemens to autograph her book, even if she says ``I donot want Clemens to autograph my book''. Some philosophers (includingMichael Devitt and Mark Richard) claim that attitude ascriptions canbe used to predict behavior, but argue that if Russellianism weretrue, then this would not be so. (...) They conclude that Russellianism isfalse. I defend Russellianism from this objection. I present severalanalyses of ``sentence S can be used to predict event E''. I arguethat, on each of these analyses, attitude ascriptions can be used topredict behavior, even if Russellianism is true. Furthermore, if myarguments are incorrect, and attitude ascriptions cannot be used topredict behavior under Russellianism, then Russellians can explainaway the intuition that they can be so used. (shrink)

Este artigo destina-se a introduzir a conferência de Heisenberg "A doutrina goethiana e newtoniana das cores à luz da física moderna", proferida em 1941, cuja tradução é aqui publicada. Analisa-se primeiramente o projeto filosófico de uma ordenação da realidade, desenvolvido pelo físico no início da década de 1940, o qual subjaz à discussão sobre as doutrinas das cores em Goethe e Newton. No segundo momento, faz-se uma exposição de algumas das implicações filosóficas da teoria quântica, com ênfase na interpretação da (...) assim denominada escola de Copenhague. Por fim, procura-se mostrar como a querela entre Goethe e Newton é utilizada para defender as abstrações da física teórica dos ataques da assim denominada "física ariana" e, ao mesmo tempo, preservar o valor das considerações intuitivas de Goethe. This paper aims at exposing the Heisenberg's conference "The teachings of Goethe and Newton on colors in the light of modern physics", presented in 1941, whose translation is presented here. In the first place the paper analyzes the philosophical project of an ordination of the reality, developed by the physicist in the early 1940s and which is the basis for the discussion of the "Teachings of Goethe and Newton on colors". Secondly it exposes some philosophical implications of the quantum theory by emphasizing the point of view of the Copenhagen school. Finally, it shows how the dispute between Goethe and Newton is exploited to defend the abstractions of the theoretical physics against the attacks of the so called "German physicists" and, at the same time, to preserve the worth of the Goethe's intuitive analysis. (shrink)

Reasons can play a variety of roles in a variety of contexts. For instance, reasons can motivate and guide us in our actions (and omissions), in the sense that we often act in the light of reasons. And reasons can be grounds for beliefs, desires and emotions and can be used to evaluate, and sometimes to justify, all these. In addition, reasons are used in explanations: both in explanations of human actions, beliefs, desires, emotions, etc., and in explanations of a (...) wide range of phenomena involving all sorts of animate and inanimate substances. This diversity has encouraged the thought that the term 'reason' is ambiguous or has different senses in different contexts. Moreover, this view often goes hand in hand with the claim that reasons of these different kinds belong to different ontological categories: to facts (or something similar) in the case of normative/justifying reasons, and to mental states in the case of motivating/explanatory reasons. In this paper I shall explore some of the main roles that reasons play and, on that basis, I shall offer a classification of kinds of reasons. As will become clear, my classification of reasons is at odds with much of the literature in several respects: first, because of my views about how we should understand the claim that reasons are classified into different kinds; second, because of the kinds into which I think reasons should be classified; and, finally, because of the consequences I think this view has for the ontology of reasons. (shrink)

Epistemologists have debated at length whether scientific discovery is a rational and logical process. If it is, according to the Artificial Intelligence hypothesis, it should be possible to write computer programs able to discover laws or theories; and if such programs were written, this would definitely prove the existence of a logic of discovery. Attempts in this direction, however, have been unsuccessful: the programs written by Simon's group, indeed, infer famous laws of physics and chemistry; but having found no new (...) law, they cannot properly be considered discovery machines. The programs written in the Turing tradition, instead, produced new and useful empirical generalization, but no theoretical discovery, thus failing to prove the logical character of the most significant kind of discoveries. A new cognitivist and connectionist approach by Holland, Holyoak, Nisbett and Thagard, looks more promising. Reflection on their proposals helps to understand the complex character of discovery processes, the abandonment of belief in the logic of discovery by logical positivists, and the necessity of a realist interpretation of scientific research. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the volume "Explanation Beyond Causation: Philosophical Perspectives on Non-Causal Explanations", edited by A. Reutlinger and J. Saatsi (OUP, forthcoming in 2017). -/- Explanations are very important to us in many contexts: in science, mathematics, philosophy, and also in everyday and juridical contexts. But what is an explanation? In the philosophical study of explanation, there is long-standing, influential tradition that links explanation intimately to causation: we often explain by providing accurate information about the causes of the (...) phenomenon to be explained. Such causal accounts have been the received view of the nature of explanation, particularly in philosophy of science, since the 1980s. However, philosophers have recently begun to break with this causal tradition by shifting their focus to kinds of explanation that do not turn on causal information. The increasing recognition of the importance of such non-causal explanations in the sciences and elsewhere raises pressing questions for philosophers of explanation. What is the nature of non-causal explanations - and which theory best captures it? How do non-causal explanations relate to causal ones? How are non-causal explanations in the sciences related to those in mathematics and metaphysics? This volume of new essays explores answers to these and other questions at the heart of contemporary philosophy of explanation. The essays address these questions from a variety of perspectives, including general accounts of non-causal and causal explanations, as well as a wide range of detailed case studies of non-causal explanations from the sciences, mathematics and metaphysics. (shrink)

This study addresses the question of normative analysis of the value‐based aspects of nursing. In our perspective, values in science may be distinguished into (i) epistemic when related to the goals of truth and objectivity and (ii) non‐epistemic when related to social, cultural or political aspects. Furthermore, values can be called constitutive when necessary for a scientific enterprise, or contextual when contingently associated with science. Analysis of the roles of the various forms of values and models of knowledge translation provides (...) the ground to understand the specific role of values in nursing. A conceptual framework has been built to classify some of the classical perspectives on nursing knowledge and to examine the relationships between values and different forms of knowledge in nursing. It follows that adopting a normative perspective in the analysis of nursing knowledge provides key elements to identify its proper dimension. (shrink)

This paper describes an alternative to the common view that explanation in the special sciences involves subsumption under laws. According to this alternative, whether or not a generalization can be used to explain has to do with whether it is invariant rather than with whether it is lawful. A generalization is invariant if it is stable or robust in the sense that it would continue to hold under a relevant if it is stable or robust in the sense that it (...) would continue to hold under a relevant class of changes. Unlike lawfulness, invariance comes in degrees and has other features that are well suited to capture the characteristics of explanatory generalizations in the special sciences. For example, a generalization can be invariant even if it has exceptions or holds only over a limited spatio-temporal interval. The notion of invariance can be used to resolve a number of dilemmas that arise in standard treatments of explanatory generalizations in the special sciences. (shrink)

Do component forces exist in conjoined circumstances? Cartwright (1980) says no; Creary (1981) says yes. I'm inclined towards Cartwright's side in this matter, but find several problems with her argumentation. My primary aim here is to present a better, distinctly causal, argument against component forces: very roughly, I argue that the joint posit of component and resultant forces in conjoined circumstances gives rise to a threat of causal overdetermination, avoidance of which best proceeds via eliminativism about component forces. A secondary (...) aim is to show that rejecting component forces does not require, pace Cartwright, rejecting certain attractive theses about what laws of nature express and the role such laws play in scientific explanations. (shrink)

Typicality is routinely invoked in everyday contexts: bobcats are typically short-tailed; people are typically less than seven feet tall. Typicality is invoked in scientific contexts as well: typical gases expand; typical quantum systems exhibit probabilistic behaviour. And typicality facts like these support many explanations, both quotidian and scientific. But what is it for something to be typical? And how do typicality facts explain? In this paper, I propose a general theory of typicality. I analyse the notion of a typical property. (...) I provide a formalism for typicality explanations, and I give an account of why typicality explanations are explanatory. Along the way, I show how typicality facts explain a variety of phenomena, from everyday phenomena to the statistical mechanical behaviour of gases. Finally, I argue that typicality is not the same thing as probability. (shrink)

Analytic Philosophy, Volume 62, Issue 1, Page 33-56, March 2021.

It is argued that a subject's evidence consists of all and only the propositions that the subject knows.

Our goal in this paper is to experimentally investigate whether folk conceptions of explanation are psychologistic. In particular, are people more likely to classify speech acts as explanations when they cause understanding in their recipient? The empirical evidence that we present suggests this is so. Using the side-effect effect as a marker of mental state ascriptions, we argue that lay judgments of explanatory status are mediated by judgments of a speaker’s and/or audience’s mental states. First, we show that attributions of (...) both understanding and explanation exhibit a side-effect effect. Next, we show that when the speaker’s and audience’s level of understanding is stipulated, the explanation side-effect effect goes away entirely. These results not only extend the side-effect effect to attributions of understanding, they also suggest that attributions of explanation exhibit a side-effect effect because they depend upon attributions of understanding, supporting the idea that folk conceptions of explanation are psychologistic. (shrink)

Many philosophers now regard causal approaches to explanation as highly promising, even in physics. This is due in large part to James Woodward's influential argument that a wide variety of scientific explanations are causal, based on his interventionist approach to causation. This article argues that some derivations describing causal relations and satisfying Woodward's criteria for causal explanation fail to be explanatory. Further, causal relations are unnecessary for a range of explanations, widespread in physics, involving highly idealized models. These constitute significant (...) limitations on the scope of causal explanation. We have good reason to doubt that causal explanation is as widespread or important in physics as Woodward and other proponents maintain. (shrink)

In this article, I examine Luhmann’s, Bunge’s and others’ views on emergence, and argue that Luhmann’s epistemological construal of emergence in terms of Totalausschluss (total exclusion) is both ontologically flawed and detrimental to an appropriate understanding of the distinctive features of social emergence. By contrast, Bunge’s rational emergentism, his CESM model, and Wimsatt’s characterization of emergence as nonaggregativity provide a useful framework to investigate emergence. While researchers in the field of social theory and sociology tend to regard Luhmann as the (...) sole representative of systems theory, the latter has been characterized by its diversity, and the writings of such systems theorists as Mario Bunge deserve more (critical) attention from social researchers than they receive at present. Finally, this article suggests that the perennial debate over methodological individualism and holism in social science may make real progress if such ambiguous terms as reduction and reductionism are elucidated before they are employed. (shrink)

Abduction was first introduced in the epistemological context of scientific discovery. It was more recently analyzed in artificial intelligence, especially with respect to diagnosis analysis or ordinary reasoning. These two fields share a common view of abduction as a general process of hypotheses formation. More precisely, abduction is conceived as a kind of reverse explanation where a hypothesis H can be abduced from events E if H is a good explanation of E. The paper surveys four known schemes for abduction (...) that can be used in both fields. Its first contribution is a taxonomy of these schemes according to a common semantic framework based on belief revision. Its second contribution is to produce, for each non-trivial scheme, a representation theorem linking its semantic framework to a set of postulates. Its third contribution is to present semantic and axiomatic arguments in favor of one of these schemes, ordered abduction, which has never been vindicated in the literature. (shrink)

According to Hempel's paradox, evidence (E) that an object is a nonblack nonraven confirms the hypothesis (H) that every raven is black. According to the standard Bayesian solution, E does confirm H but only to a minute degree. This solution relies on the almost never explicitly defended assumption that the probability of H should not be affected by evidence that an object is nonblack. I argue that this assumption is implausible, and I propose a way out for Bayesians. Introduction Hempel's (...) paradox, the standard Bayesian solution, and the disputed assumption Attempts to defend the disputed assumption Attempts to refute the disputed assumption A way out for Bayesians Conclusion. (shrink)

Spinoza is most often seen as a stern advocate of mechanistic efficient causation, but examining his philosophy in relation to the Aristotelian tradition reveals this view to be misleading: some key passages of the Ethics resemble so much what Surez writes about emanation that it is most natural to situate Spinoza's theory of causation not in the context of the mechanical sciences but in that of a late scholastic doctrine of the emanative causality of the formal cause; as taking a (...) look at the seventeenth-century philosophy of mathematics reveals, this is in consonance also with Spinoza's geometrical cast of mind. Against this background, I examine Spinoza's essentialist model of causation according to which each thing has a formal character determined by the thing's essence and what follows from that essence. In the case of real things this essential causal architecture results in efficacy, i.e. in bringing about real effects, the key idea being that without the essential, formally structured causal thrust there would be no efficacy in the first place. I also explain how this model accounts for efficient causation taking place between finite things. (shrink)

The controversy about intentional explanation of action concerns how these explanations work. What kind of model allows us to capture the dependency or relevance relation between the explanans, i.e. the beliefs and desires of the agent, and the explanandum, i.e. the action? In this paper, I argue that the causal mechanical model can do the job. Causal mechanical intentional explanations consist in a reference to the mechanisms of practical reasoning of the agent that motivated the agent to act, i.e. to (...) a causally relevant set of beliefs and desires. Moreover, the causal mechanical model can provide in efficient and unproblematic applications, unlike action explanations using ceteris paribus laws or counterfactuals. The drawback of the latter models of explanation is their modal requirement: the explanans must mention or implies sufficient and/or necessary conditions for the explanandum. Such a requirement is too strong when it comes to intentional explanation of action. (shrink)

Pluralism with respect to the structure of explanations of facts is not uncommon. Wesley Salmon, for instance, distinguished two types of explanation: causal explanations (which provide insight in the causes of the fact we want to explain) and unification explanations (which fit the explanandum into a unified world view). The pluralism which Salmon and others have defended is compatible with several positions about the exact relation between these two types of explanations. We distinguish four such positions, and argue in favour (...) of one of them. We also compare our results with the views of some authors who have recently written on this subject. (shrink)

My thesis is that you can lie with ‘ P therefore Q ’ without P or Q being lies. For you can lie by virtue of not believing that P supports Q. My thesis is reconciled with the principle that all lies are assertions through H. P. Grice’s account of conventional implicatures. These semantic cousins of conversational implicatures are secondary assertions that clarify the speaker’s attitude toward his primary assertions. The meaning of ‘therefore’ commits the speaker to an entailment thesis (...) even though the speaker does not enter that commitment into the text. Insincere conventional implicatures are akin to insincerely asserted footnotes. An absence of lies in the text is compatible with the presence of lies in the meta-text. (shrink)