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Ideas of Wesley Salmon, by Text

[American, 1925 - 2001, Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.]

1970 Statistical Explanation
p.2 14366 An explanation is a table of statistical information [Strevens]
1980 Causality: Production and Propagation
§2 p.155 8411 Instead of localised events, I take enduring and extended processes as basic to causation
§4 p.164 8412 A causal interaction is when two processes intersect, and correlated modifications persist afterwards
§8 p.170 8413 Cause must come first in propagations of causal interactions, but interactions are simultaneous
1980 Probabilistic Causality
p.137 p.137 8409 Probabilistic causal concepts are widely used in everyday life and in science
1984 Causal Connections
p.111 4784 Salmon says processes rather than events should be basic in a theory of physical causation [Psillos]
1984 Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World
p.211 17093 Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms
p.379 17492 Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan]
1989 Four Decades of Scientific Explanation
Intro p.3 13047 It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that'
Pref p.-3 13045 Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms
Pref p.-3 13046 Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar
1.1 p.14 13049 We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things
1.1 p.24 13051 Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain
1.1 p.24 13050 The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments
2.2 p.45 13053 A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference
2.3 p.49 13054 Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations
2.4.2 p.55 13055 Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence
2.5 p.59 13056 Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability
3.2 p.74 13057 Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies
3.2 p.78 13058 Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation
3.2 p.86 13059 Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts
3.6 p.103 13061 Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering
3.6 p.103 13060 Can events whose probabilities are low be explained?
3.8 p.114 13062 Does an item have a function the first time it occurs?
4.1 p.121 13063 Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts
4.1 p.121 13064 The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic
4.3 p.127 13065 Understanding is an extremely vague concept
4.3 p.132 13067 For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations
1998 Causality and Explanation
3.1 p.7 16557 Salmon's mechanisms are processes and interactions, involving marks, or conserved quantities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]