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| 12313 | Explanation is for curiosity, control, understanding, to make meaningful, or to give authority |
| Full Idea: There are a number of reasons why we explain: out of sheer curiosity, to increase our control of a situation, to help understanding by simplifying or making familiar, to confer meaning or significance, and to give scientific authority to some statement. | |||
| From: Michael Stanford (Explanation: the state of play [1991], p.172) |
| 12314 | Audience-relative explanation, or metaphysical explanation based on information? |
| Full Idea: Rather than an 'interest-relative' notion of explanation (Putnam), it can be informational content which makes an explanation, which is an 'audience-invariant' contraint, which is not pragmatic, but mainly epistemological and also partly metaphysical. | |||
| From: Michael Stanford (Explanation: the state of play [1991], p.172) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed summary of Ruben 1990] Examples given are that Rome burning explains Nero fiddling, even if no one ever says so, and learning that George III had porphyria explains his madness. |
| 12315 | We can explain by showing constitution, as well as showing causes |
| Full Idea: The powerful engine of my car can be explained by an examination of each of its parts, but it is not caused by them. They do not cause the engine; they constitute it. | |||
| From: Michael Stanford (Explanation: the state of play [1991], p.174) | |||
| A reaction: [example from Ruben 1990:221] This could be challenged, since there is clearly a causal connection between the constitution and the whole. We distinguish engine parts which contribute to the power from those which do not. |