display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
17291 | We explain by identity (what it is), or by truth (how things are) [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: I think it should be recognised that there are two fundamentally different types of explanation; one is of identity, or of what something is; and the other is of truth, or of how things are. | |
From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.11) |
17271 | Is there metaphysical explanation (as well as causal), involving a constitutive form of determination? [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: In addition to scientific or causal explanation, there maybe a distinctive kind of metaphysical explanation, in which explanans and explanandum are connected, not through some causal mechanism, but through some constitutive form of determination. | |
From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], Intro) | |
A reaction: I'm unclear why determination has to be 'constitutive', since I would take determination to be a family of concepts, with constitution being one of them, as when chess pieces determine a chess set. Skip 'metaphysical'; just have Determinative Explanation. |
16861 | A false theory could hardly rival the explanatory power of natural selection [Darwin] |
Full Idea: It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. | |
From: Charles Darwin (The Origin of the Species [1859], p.476), quoted by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 11 'The scientific' | |
A reaction: More needs to be said, since the whims of God could explain absolutely everything (in a manner that would be somehow less that fully satisfying to the enquiring intellect). |