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Single Idea 13048

[filed under theme 14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation ]

Full Idea

Carnap's four criteria for giving a good explication are similarity to the explicandum, exactness, fruitfulness and simplicity.

Clarification

The 'explicandum' is the thing which is explicated by the 'explicans'

Gist of Idea

Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum

Source

report of Rudolph Carnap (Logical Foundations of Probability [1950], Ch.1) by Wesley Salmon - Four Decades of Scientific Explanation 0.1

Book Ref

Salmon,Wesley C.: 'Four Decades of Scientific Explanation', ed/tr. Humphreys,Paul [Pittsburgh 2006], p.5

A Reaction

[compressed] Salmon's view is that this represents the old attitude, that the contribution of philosophy to explanation is the clarification of the key concepts. Carnap is, of course, a logical empiricist.

The 20 ideas from Rudolph Carnap

16252 Metaphysics uses empty words, or just produces pseudo-statements [Carnap]
8748 Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro]
8960 Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó]
13932 Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap]
13933 Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap]
13934 To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap]
13936 Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap]
13935 We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap]
13937 New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap]
13938 A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap]
13939 No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap]
13940 All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap]
13048 Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon]
12131 All concepts can be derived from a few basics, making possible one science of everything [Carnap, by Brody]
18699 Carnap tried to define all scientific predicates in terms of primitive relations, using type theory [Carnap, by Button]
13251 Each person is free to build their own logic, just by specifying a syntax [Carnap]
13342 Carnap defined consequence by contradiction, but this is unintuitive and changes with substitution [Tarski on Carnap]
11968 The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan]
14305 In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water [Carnap]
18285 All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality) [Carnap]