more on this theme     |     more from this text

Single Idea 13063

[filed under theme 14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism ]

Full Idea

I favour an ontic conception of explanation, that explanations reveal the mechanisms, causal or other, that produce the facts we are trying to explain.

Gist of Idea

Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts

Source

Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 4.1)

Book Ref

Salmon,Wesley C.: 'Four Decades of Scientific Explanation', ed/tr. Humphreys,Paul [Pittsburgh 2006], p.121

A Reaction

[He also cites Coffa and Peter Railton] A structure may explain, and only be supported by causal powers, but it doesn't seem to be the causal powers that do the explaining. Is a peg fitting a hole explained causally?

The 29 ideas from Wesley Salmon

4784 Salmon says processes rather than events should be basic in a theory of physical causation [Salmon, by Psillos]
16557 Salmon's mechanisms are processes and interactions, involving marks, or conserved quantities [Salmon, by Machamer/Darden/Craver]
8411 Instead of localised events, I take enduring and extended processes as basic to causation [Salmon]
8412 A causal interaction is when two processes intersect, and correlated modifications persist afterwards [Salmon]
8413 Cause must come first in propagations of causal interactions, but interactions are simultaneous [Salmon]
13047 It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon]
13046 Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon]
13045 Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon]
13050 The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon]
13049 We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon]
13051 Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon]
13053 A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon]
13054 Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon]
13055 Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon]
13056 Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon]
13057 Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon]
13058 Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon]
13059 Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon]
13061 Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon]
13060 Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon]
13062 Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon]
13063 Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon]
13064 The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon]
13067 For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon]
13065 Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon]
8409 Probabilistic causal concepts are widely used in everyday life and in science [Salmon]
17093 Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon]
17492 Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon]
14366 An explanation is a table of statistical information [Salmon, by Strevens]