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7139 | Explanation is just showing the succession of things ever more clearly [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Showing the succession of things ever more clearly is what's named 'explanation': no more than that! | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 35[52]) | |
A reaction: If you lay bare all causal sequences, you may not have explained anything until you have pointed out a pattern in the events. Explanations must partly depend on the interests of the enquirer, so pure catalogues of events won't do. |
15119 | Aristotelian explanation by essence may need to draw on knowledge of other essences [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: From Aristotle's biology we learn that a successful scientific explanation of the necessary (but non-essential) features of one type of phenomenon (e.g. camels) my require appeal to facts about the essences of other types of phenomena (stomachs). | |
From: report of Aristotle (The History of Animals [c.344 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - Essence, Necessity and Explanation 13.4 |