Philosophy 920: Scientific Explanation

Spring 2008

Syllabus

Introduction:

Scientific explanation is one of the broadest and most important topics in the philosophy of science.  If one presses hard enough, questions about explanation lead to questions concerning scientific realism, concerning the nature of laws and theories, concerning the nature of causation, concerning the interpretation of probability and the significance of indeterminism, concerning the relations between the natural and social sciences, concerning the character of functional ascriptions in biology and the social science, concerning confirmation and theory choice.  In other words reflection on scientific explanation leads to reflection on most of the central problems in the philosophy of science.

Although this seminar aims at providing an overview of the central problems concerning scientific explanation and the principal solutions that have been proposed, the topics covered in this seminar will be somewhat narrowly defined. In particular,

• I will take it for granted that one aim of science is to offer explanations.  As I will argue, this assumption does not beg the question between scientific realists and instrumentalists, who disagree about the ultimate ends of science, not about whether science aims to provide explanations.
• Comparatively little will be said about laws and theories, although the question of whether explanations rely on laws cannot be avoided.
• This is a seminar on explanation, not causation; and accordingly I will make an effort to avoid philosophical problems concerning causation. But they cannot be avoided altogether.
• The focus will be on non-statistical explanation, but we will discuss the most important accounts of statistical or probabilistic explanation, since consideration of non-deterministic relations is crucial to understanding what explanation involves.
• We will not emphasize the explanatory questions that the special sciences, including especiallly the social sciences raise, such as the relations between reasons and causes or the relations between population-level and individual causation, and we will have relatively little to say about functional explanations.
• We shall say very little about the role of explanation in confirmation or theory choice.

So what does that leave?  What issues will this seminar address?

• What is a scientific explanation?
• What purposes do scientific explanations serve?  Why do we seek explanations?   What are explanations for?
• How have models of scientific explanation changed with the development of science itself?
• What are the differences between probabilistic and non-probabilistic explanations?   Can there be such a thing as probabilistic explanation?
• What sort of model of scientific explanation should we seek?  Should a single model apply to all of science or should different models apply to different sciences?  What role should pragmatic features play in a model of scientific explanation.  At what level of abstraction should a model of scientific explanation be cast?
• What are the principal models of scientific explanation?  What's to be said for them?  What problems do they face?  The contenders we will discuss are:
  • The deductive-nomological and inductive-statistical models.
  • The statistical-relevance model
  • Pragmatic or Erotetic models
  • Models of explanation as unification
  • Causal models

Course Goals:

1. To provide a good grasp of what scientific explanation is, how the notion of scientific explanation has changed with the development of science, and how to adjudicate among competing theories of scientific explanation.
2. To provide familiarity with the principal texts concerning scientific explanation.
3. To develop the analytical skills, the writing skills, and the presentation skills of the members of the seminar.

Note: Students are encouraged to discuss problems concerning the teaching of this course with the instructor. If students wish to pursue a complaint with someone else, they should contact James Anderson, Assistant to the Chairperson, Philosophy Department, 5185 H.C. White Hall, 263-5162.

Texts:

• Carl Hempel. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press, 1965. (if you are able to get a copy)
• Bas C. van Fraassen. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.
• James Woodward. Making Things Happen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Xeroxed collections on sale at the Underground Textbook Exchange on State Street.

Course Web Site:

A variety of material, including the syllabus, a bibliography, and other materials will be available on the seminar web page at http://philosophy.wisc.edu/hausman/920s08/main.htm. There will also be a seminar discussion page, where class discussion can continue out of class on Learn@UW.

As explained below, the course discussion on the Learn@UW site will play an important part in the seminar. Your weekly postings will provide the starting point for the seminar discussions, and a great deal depends on how well thought out and composed those postings are. I will provide occasional detailed feedback, and your postings will also influence your course grades. The web discussion will be of greater value if you

1. Refine your contribution as much as possible. Use a word-processing program or text editor rather than the web editor so that you can easily read, reread, revise, and improve what you have written.
2. Think about how to format your contribution to make it as easy to read and comprehend as possible. Numbering your points can make it easier for others to respond to particular claims. Keep your paragraphs short.
3. Think about not only what you want to say but how to say it so that it will be as clear to other members of the seminar and as easy for them to grasp as possible.
4. Be careful to be courteous -- but don't hide your disagreements. Disagreement is in fact a peculiarly philosophical form of compliment. Tough criticism is unavoidable in serious philosophy -- we're trying to find the correct answers, and we cannot be indifferent to what seem to us to be mistakes -- but rudeness and personal attacks are unacceptable. Criticism and debate thrive when there is mutual respect, despite vigorous disagreement. A large part of doing philosophy is blundering, finding one's mistakes (with the help of others), and then blundering again -- though hopefully not quite as egregiously.

Seminar Requirements:

1. Seminar Paper:

• The seminar paper is the main work required and counts toward 70% of your semester's grade.
• Papers can be on virtually any subject that is relevant to this seminar. I encourage you to come up with your own topic, but I am happy to make recommendations if you get stuck.
• Everyone should email me with a proposed topic by the seventh meeting of the seminar (Monday, March 10). That email should (1) describe the problem your seminar paper will tackle, (2) suggest what sort of solution you hope to be able to defend, (3) list the most important texts that you think you will need to study, and (4) explain why you decided to tackle this problem. Obviously, it is hard to answer these questions before you have written your papers. But it is important to take a stab at answering them, even if it turns out that your guesses as to where you are going turn out to be off the mark.
• Seminar papers should be roughly 15 double-spaced pages in length.  Much shorter papers probably will not engage the issues with sufficient detail, depth, and care.   Longer papers are fine, but not if they could have been shorter without loss.   Seminar papers are due at the last meeting of the seminar on Monday, May 5.  Incompletes are granted only for compelling reasons.
• Further comments on writing seminar papers will be posted on the web.

2. Seminar Presentation:

• Students who are enrolled in the seminar for credit are all required to give one seminar presentation during the semester, which will count for one-fifth of your semester's grade. A sign-up sheet will be distributed. Owing to high enrollment, someone will present every week except the last. Those who might be interested in making a presentation at the first regular meeting of the seminar (January 28) should email me as soon as possible so as to have more time to prepare.
• Seminar presentations will typically consist in articulating some specific issue that arises in the assigned reading for the particular meeting of the seminar, clarifying and relating the views on this issue that are defended in the readings, and offering a tentative conclusion concerning how the issue should be addressed.
• Seminar presentations should be roughly 20 minutes in length.  Presenters should prepare a brief handout, generally no more than two pages, to help the audience to follow the presentation.  The goal is to make a clear and useful presentation to the seminar that will help to focus the discussion that follows, not to write a polished paper or to resolve all the problems raised by the readings.  Seminar presentations may be interrupted with questions, and seminar presenters should lead the ensuing discussion.
• Presenters will post between three and six discussion questions on the Learn@UW discussion page by midnight on the Friday before the seminar meets.
• Presenters will study the responses to the discussion questions posted by the seminar members and, where appropriate, refer to them in the presentation. Presenters should print out the discussion questions and responses and bring copies to the seminar.
• In many cases seminar presentations will be on the same topic as the seminar paper. But this is not necessary, and those who give presentations early in the semester may well decide to focus on different questions in their seminar papers.

Seminar Participation:

• In my view, graduate seminars should not be lecture courses, and I shall do what I can to make sure that the issues are advanced through discussion. That means, of course, that the success of the seminar depends heavily on you. In particular, it depends on your doing the readings carefully and taking responsibility for generating the questions and remarks that will enable the discussion to advance the consideration of the issues raised in the readings. Though I hope that I will have useful remarks to offer (and I'm not as disciplined about shutting up as I ought to be), every member of the seminar should have useful insights and perspectives to offer to the other members, too.
• To help provoke, guide, and enrich the discussion, questions will be posted on the Learn@UW discussion page by midnight on the Friday before each seminar. These questions will be posted by whoever is leading the discussion. Every member of the seminar should post a response to one of these questions by noon on Sunday. The responses should be no more than 100 words, and they should be highly polished. Writing such a brief response is a serious challenge. Once or twice during the semester I will give you detailed (nit-picky) criticism of your responses.
• Participation in discussion in the seminar and on the seminar discussion page will count for 10% of your semester grade.

Seminar Outline:

Note: The suggestions for further reading that are listed for many of the seminar sessions are just that.  No one is expected to do the "further readings."  The suggestions are there only to provide some guidance to those who want to pursue the particular issues further.  Members of the seminar may also want to consult the bibliography on scientific explanation available at http://philosophy.wisc.edu/920/bibliography.htm

Monday, January 21: Optional informal dinner meeting. 6:00 1016 Van Buren Street. Introduction. Pre-theoretic notions of explanation. Scientific versus non-scientific explanation. What are the questions, and why are they important?

1 Monday, January 28:  Aristotle, medieval, and early modern views of scientific explanation. Occult powers versus mechanisms

Readings:

• Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book I, Parts 1-3, 7; Physics, Book II, Parts 1-3, 7-9; Posterior Analytics, Book I, Parts 1, 2, 4, 6, 13; Book II, Parts 1-3, 11, 16
• pp. 513-36 of Steven Nadler, "Doctrines of Explanation in Late Scholasticism and in the Mechanical Philosophy," pp. 513-552 of The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. edited by Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers.   Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• Descartes, Le Monde or Treatise of Light (excerpts)

Optional:

• William Wallace, Causality and Scientific Explanation, vol. 1. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972, pp. 10-18.
• John Losee, A Historical Introduction ot the Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972, pp. 9-15, chapter 5.
• Baruch Brody, "Towards an Aristotelian Theory of Scientific Explanation," pp. 113-127 of Ruben (1993).
• Timothy McCarthy, "On An Aristotelian Model of Scientific Explanation," pp. 128-35 of Ruben (1993).
• Hobbes, Thomas. De Corpore, ch. 9-10; translated and reprinted in Body, Man, and Citizen. New York: Collier Books, 1962, pp. 115-24.
• Marie Boas Hall, Robert Boyle on Natural Philosophy: An Essay with Selections from His Writings. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965, ch. 3, pp. 134-5 "The Requisites of a Good Hypothesis", and "Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy," pp. 208-9.
• Kenneth Clatterbaugh, The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy 1637-1739. New York: Routledge, 1999, ch. 1-4.
• E. A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science. New York: Humanities Press, 1952, pp. 63-71, 98-104.

2 Monday, February 4:  Newton and the transformation of scientific explanation: a weaker notion of mechanical explanation

Readings

• Letters to Oldenburg on the theory of colors by Newton and Hooke  (excerpts)
• Newton, Opticks  (excerpts)
• Steven Nadler, "Doctrines of Explanation in Late Scholasticism and in the Mechanical Philosophy," pp. 513-552 of The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. edited by Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• Russell Wahl, "Occasional Causes," pp. 119-32 of J. Campbell, M. O'Roiurke, and H. Silverstein, eds. Causation and Explanation. MIT Press, 2007.
• John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Book III, chapter 12, pp. 305-11.
• Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954, Part I, chapters 1-3.

Optional

• Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961, pp. 153-74, especially pp. 169-74.
• William Wallace, Causality and Scientific Explanation, vol. 1. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972, pp. 194-210.
• John Losee, A Historical Introduction ot the Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972, chapter 8.
• Kenneth Clatterbaugh, The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy 1637-1739. New York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 174-82.
• E. A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science. New York: Humanities Press, 1952, pp. 207-26.

3 Monday, February 11:  The deductive-nomological model of explanation (I).  The basic model, its setting, motivation, structure, and plausibility.

Readings:

• Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, section 12 (pp. 59-62).
• Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, "Studies in the Logic of Explanation," Part 1 and the beginning of Part 3; reprinted in Aspects, pp. 245-58, 264-70.
• Hempel, "Aspects of Scientific Explanation," Sections 1 and 2, pp. 333-376 of Aspects.

Optional:

• Wesley Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989, Introduction and Chapter 1.
• Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961, ch. 2, 3.
• Norman Campbell, The Philosophy of Theory and Experiment. New York: Dover, 1957, pp. 114-18 (originally published in 1919 as Physics: The Elements).
• R. B. Braithwaite, Scientific Explanation: A Study of the Functionof Theory, Probability, and Law in Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953, pp. 319-54.
• P.W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics. New York: Macmillan, 1932, pp. 37-51.

4 Monday, February 18: Controversies concerning the deductive-nomological model.

Readings:

• Michael Scriven, "Explanations, Predictions, and Laws," pp. 88-104 of Baruch Brody, ed. Readings in the Philosophy of Science. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970.
• Carl Hempel, "Aspects of Scientific Explanation, " Sections 4-9, pp. 412-25 of Aspects
• James Woodward, Making Things Happen. Oxford University Press, 2003, chapter 4.

Optional:

• Carl Hempel, "Aspects of Scientific Explanation, " Sections 4-9, pp. 425-63 of Aspects
• Wesley Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989, sections 2.1-2.3.
• Israel Scheffler, "Explanation, Prediction, and Abstraction," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 7 (1957): 293-309.
• Bromberger, Sylvain. 1966. "Why Questions." In R. Colodny, ed. Mind and Cosmos: Essays in Contemporary Science and Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 86-111.
• Eberle, R., Kaplan, D. & Montague, R. ''Hempel and Oppenheim on Explanation'', Philosophy of Science 28 (1961), pp. 418-28.

5 Monday, February 25:  Final versus efficient causes, mechanical and functional explanation, and the limits to the deductive-nomological model and its explanatory ideal

Readings:

• Carl Hempel, "The Logic of Functional Analysis," in Aspects of Scientific Explanation, esp. pp. 303-14, 325-30.
• Carl Hempel, "Aspects of Scientific Explanation," pp. 469-78.
• Cohen, G. "Reply to Elster on Marxism, Functionalism and Game Theory," Theory and Society 11 (1982): 483-96.

Optional:

• Cummins, R. 1975. "Functional Analysis," Journal of Philosophy 72: 741-65.
• Elster, Explaining Technical Change, ch. 2.
• Elster, J. "Marxism, Functionalism and Game Theory," Theory and Society 11 (1982), pp. 453-82.
• Nagel, E. 1961. The Structure of Science, pp. 401-427 and 520-534.
• Philip Pettit, "Functional Explanation and Virtual Selection," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (1996): 291-302.

6 Monday, March 3: Inductive-statistical explanation

Readings:

• Hempel, "Aspects of Scientific Explanation," pp. 376-411.
• Richard Jeffrey, "Statistical Explanation vs. Statistical Inference," pp. 19-28 of Wesley Salmon, Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971.

Optional:

• Wesley Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989, sections 2.4 and 2.5.
• J. Alberto Coffa, "Hempel's Ambiguity," pp. 56-77 of Ruben (1993).
• Carl Hempel, ''Deductive-Nomological vs. Statistical Explanation'', in Feigl, H & Maxwell, G (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. vol. 3, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962, pp. 98-169.
• Carl Hempel, ''Maximal Specificity and Lawlikeness in Probabilistic Explanation'', Philosophy of Science 35 (1968): 116-33.

7 Monday, March 10: Salmon's statistical relevance model

Readings:

• Wesley Salmon, "Statistical Explanation," pp. 29-87 of Wesley Salmon, Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971.

Optional:

• Wesley Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989, sections 3.1-3.3.
• Paul Humphreys,  "Aleatory Explanations." Synthese 48 (1981): 225-32.
• Paul Humphreys, "Aleatory Explanations Expanded." In Peter Asquith and Thomas Nickles, eds. PSA 1982, vol. II. East Lansing, Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association, 1983, pp. 208-23.

8 Monday, March 24:  Conclusions on probabilistic explanation

Readings

• Peter Railton, ''A Deductive-Nomological Account of Probabilistic Explanation'', Philosophy of Science 45 (1978): 206-226
• Paul Humphreys, The Chances of Explanation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989, chapter 4.

Optional

• Wesley Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989, sections 4.6-4.11
• Peter Railton, "Probability, Explanation, and Information," pp. 160-81 of Ruben (1993).
• Peter Railton, "Explaining Explanation: A Realist Account of Scientific Explanation." Dissertation, Princeton University, 1980.

9 Monday, March 31: Explanations and Why-Questions.  The pragmatic (erotetic) theory of explanation

Readings

• Bas C. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, ch. 5.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.
• Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon, ''Van Fraassen on Explanation'', Journal of Philosophy 84 (1987):  315-30.

Optional

• Peter Achinstein, "The Pragmatic Character of Explanation," pp. 275-92 of PSA 1984, vol. II.
• Wesley Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989, sections 4.4, 4.5.
• Peter Achinstein, The Nature of Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, ch. 2-4.
• Bromberger, Sylvain. 1966. "Why Questions." In R. Colodny, ed. Mind and Cosmos: Essays in Contemporary Science and Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 86-111.
• Paul Teller, "On Why Questions," Nous 8 (1974): 371-80.
• Garfinkle, A. (1981) Forms of Explanation. New Haven: Yale University Press.

10 Monday, April 7: Explanation and unification

Readings:

• Michael Friedman, "Explanation and Scientific Understanding." Journal of Philosophy 71(1974): 5-19.
• Philip Kitcher, 1976.  "Explanation, Conjunction, and Unification." Journal of Philosophy 73: 207-12.
• Philip Kitcher, 1989. "Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure of the World." In Kitcher, Philip and Wesley Salmon, eds. 1989. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. vol. 13 Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 410-505.

Optional:

• Garfinkle, A. (1981) Forms of Explanation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Philip Kitcher, 1981. "Explanatory Unification." Philosophy of Science 48: 507-31
• E. Barnes, "Explanatory Unification and the Problem of Asymmetry." Philosophy of Science 59 (1992): 558-71.
• M. Morrison, Unifying Scientific Theories. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• James Woodward, Making Things Happen. Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 358-73.

11 Monday, April 14: Explanatory asymmetries and theories of causal explanation

Readings

• Daniel M. Hausman, "Why Don't Effects Explain Their Causes?" Synthese 94 (1993), pp. 227-44.
• Richard Jeffrey, "Statistical Explanation vs. Statistical Inference," pp. 19-28 of Wesley Salmon, Statical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971.
• Wesley Salmon, Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 120-34, 267-79.
• David Lewis, "Causal Explanation," pp. 214-40 of Philosophical Papers, vol. II. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Optional:

• Wesley Salmon, "Explanatory Asymmetry: A Letter to Professor Adolf Grünbaum from His Friend and Colleague," in Wesley Salmon, Causlaity and Explanation. New York: Oxford Universit Press, pp. 164-77.
• Wesley Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989, sections 4.1-4.4, and chapter 5.
• Daniel M. Hausman, "Linking Causal and Explanatory Asymmetries," Philosophy of Science 60(1993): 435-51.

12 Monday, April 21:  Theories of causal explanation

Readings

• Richard Miller, Fact and Method, chapter 2, pp. 60-105.
• James Woodward, Making Things Happen. Oxford University Press, 2003, chapter 5

Optional

• Paul Thagard, How Scientists Explain Disease. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, chapters 2 and 7.
• Paul Humphreys, The Chances of Explanation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989, chapter 4.
• Garfinkle, A. (1981) Forms of Explanation. New Haven: Yale University Press ch. 1(?).
• Peter Lipton, "Contrastive Explanation," pp. 207-27 of Ruben (1993)

13 Monday, April 28: Causal explanation, invariance and law

Readings

• James Woodward, Making Things Happen, chapter 6

Optional

• Brian Skyrms, Causal Necessity, pp. 9-19, 54-61, 140-45.
• Sandra Mitchell, "Pragmatic Laws," PSA 1996, vol. II (Supplement to Philosophy of Science), pp. S468-79.
• Sandra Mitchell, "Dimensions of Scientific Laws," Philosophy of Science 67 (2000): 242-65.
• Dan Hausman, Causal Asymmetries, ch. 8.

14 Monday, May 5: Non-causal scientific explanation (?)

Readings

• Dan Hausman, “Lessons from Quantum Mechanics,” Synthese 121 (1999): 79-92.
• Elliott Sober, "Equilibrium Explanation," Philosophical Studies 43 (1983): 201-10.
• James Woodward, Making Things Happen, sections 5.7, 5.9, 5.13

Office Hours:

If my office hours, (Tuesdays 11:00-12:00 and Wednesdays 1:30-2:30) are not convenient, email me, call me, or see me after seminar to arrange another time to meet.  Please feel free to come see me.

The Use of Email:

Feel free to email me at dhausman@wisc.edu with any specific questions, but if the question involves a matter of philosophical substance, I would urge you to post it on the course web page and then send me (or the entire class) a brief email notifying me (us) of the posting.  I will give each of you a seminar email distribution list.

A Note on Plagiarism:

It should go without saying (though I'm saying it anyway) that plagiarism is a serious offense. All sources and assistance used in preparing your papers must be precisely and explicitly acknowledged -- this includes even a few words pasted from some internet source. If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism, please come talk with me. Ignorance of what constitutes plagiarism is not a defense. It is your responsibility to be sure.