Philosophy 920: Scientific Explanation

Spring 2002

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 much more narrowly defined. In particular,

• I will take it for granted that one aim of science is to offer explanations.  This assumption does not beg the question between scientific realists and instrumentalists, because these explanations may in turn serve a more fundamental practical or instrumental goal.
• Comparatively little will be said about laws and theories.  I shall take it for granted that explanations that cite laws and theories are not satisfactory if the laws and theories they cite are not true.  In this way the course will simply assume that certain anti-realist positions, such as van Fraassen's, are false.  But this is mainly a terminological convenience, and most of what we shall discuss could be rephrased in a way that would be more congenial to the anti-realist.
• As little as possible will be said about those aspects of causation that are separable from questions concerning explanation.
• We will discuss alternative accounts of statistical or probabilistic explanation, since consideration of non-deterministic relations is crucial to understanding what explanation involves.  But we will generally shy away from the technical details; and our focus will be on non-statistical explanations.
• We will not address any of the special explanatory questions that the social sciences raise, such as the relations between reasons and causes, and we will have little to say about functional explanations.  But for reasons that will be clear later, we cannot ignore functional explanation altogether.
• We shall say vrey 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 most of 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.
• 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/920s02/main.htm. I will often post suggestions for topics to think about for the next seminar.  There will also be a seminar discussion page, where class discussion can continue out of class at http://philosophy.wisc.edu/920-2002.

The discussion page can be a useful way of expanding and continuing discussion in the seminar, but to take advantage of it requires lots of effort and discipline.  It is not easy to read single-spaced text, whether on line or printed out; and if contributions are long and unfocused, member of the seminar are going to stop reading. So

1. Spend some time refining your contribution as much as possible. In particular, I urge you to use a word-processing program or text editor rather than the web editor so that you can easily read and reread 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 because of a concern to give offense. Tough criticism is unavoidable in serious philosophy, but rudeness and personal attacks are unacceptable.

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 (Wednesday, March 6). 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 finished (or even begun) 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 on Wednesday, March 8.  Incompletes are granted only for good 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.
• 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.  (If they were written out, they would be roughly six double-spaced pages.)  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 second briefer paper.  Seminar presentations may be interrupted with questions, and seminar presenters should lead the ensuing discussion.
• 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.
• Students should have an outline of their presentations ready a week in advance and should discuss their outlines with me.
• A list of possible topics and dates for presentations will be posted on the web and distributed during the first meeting of the seminar, and I shall ask you to let me know your first four choices by the end of the second week of classes.

Seminar Participation:

• Participation in discussion in the seminar and on the seminar discussion page will count for 10% of your semester grade, though only in unusual circumstances will poor participation lower your grade.
• In my view, discussion is the life-blood of a seminar.  Though I hope that I will have useful insights and perspectives to offer, every member of the seminar should have useful insights and perspectives to offer to the other members, too.
• I will use the course discussion page to post questions and puzzles, and if we are clever and sensible in the use of the web page, it will provide an opportunity for continuing and expanding the course discussion.  As mentioned before, this means that considerable thought and self-restraint must go into the postings.  They should be as brief, precise, and to the point as possible.  And courtesy and gentleness in disagreement are essential!!  (I'll try to succeed in practicing what I preach.)

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 this 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

1 Wednesday, January 23:  Introduction.  Pre-theoretic notions of explanation.  Scientific versus non-scientific explanation.  What are the questions, and why are they important.  Aristotle's theory of Scientific Explanation.   What is his view of the point of scientific explanation?

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

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.
• pp. 513-16 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.
• 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).

2 Wednesday, January 30:  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:

• 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.
• John Losee, A Historical Introduction ot the Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972, chapter 5.
• 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.

3 Wednesday, February 6:  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.
• 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.

4 Wednesday, February 13: 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.

5 Wednesday, February 20:  Controversies concerning the deductive-nomological model.

Readings:

• Michael Scriven, "Explanations, Predictions, and Laws," pp. 51-74 of Joseph Pitt, ed. Theories of Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• Carl Hempel, "Aspects of Scientific Explanation, " Sections 4-9, pp. 412-63 of Aspects

Optional:

• 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.
• James Woodward, A Theory of Explanation: Causation, Invariance, and Intervention. Oxford University Press, 2002, chapter 4.

6 Wednesday, February 27: 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.
• Philip Pettit, "Functional Explanation and Virtual Selection," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (1996): 291-302.

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.
• Cohen, G. "Reply to Elster on Marxism, Functionalism and Game Theory," Theory and Society 11 (1982): 483-96.
• Nagel, E. 1961. The Structure of Science, pp. 401-427 and 520-534.

7 Wednesday, March 6: 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.

8 Wednesday, March 13:  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.

9 Wednesday, March 20: 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.

10 Wednesday, April 3: Explanations and Why-Questions.  The pragmatic (erotetic) theory of explanation

Readings

• Bas C. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, ch. 5.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.

Optional

• 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.
• Peter Achinstein, "What Is an Explanation?" American Philosophical Quarterly 14(1977): 1-15.
• 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.

11 Wednesday, April 10: Rethinking pragmatics: explanation and unification

Readings:

• Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon, ''Van Fraassen on Explanation'', Journal of Philosophy 84 (1987):  315-30; rpt. in Ruben (1993), pp. 310-25.
• 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.

Optional:

• Peter Achinstein, "The Pragmatic Character of Explanation," pp. 326-44 of Ruben (1993).
• Garfinkle, A. (1981) Forms of Explanation. New Haven: Yale University Press.

12 Wednesday, April 17: Explanation and Unification: Kitcher's theory

Readings

• Philip Kitcher, 1981. "Explanatory Unification." Philosophy of Science 48: 507-31.
• 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

• James Woodward, A Theory of Explanation: Causation, Invariance, and Intervention. Oxford University Press, 2002, chapter 8.

13 Wednesday, April 24:  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.
• James Woodward, A Theory of Explanation: Causation, Invariance, and Intervention. Oxford University Press, 2002, chapter 8.
• Daniel M. Hausman, "Linking Causal and Explanatory Asymmetries," Philosophy of Science 60(1993): 435-51.

14 Wednesday, May 1: Theories of causal explanation and the role of context and contrast

Readings

• Richard Miller, Fact and Method, Part I.

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)

15 Wednesday, May 8: Causal explanation, invariance and law

Readings

• James Woodward, A Theory of Explanation: Causation, Invariance, and Intervention. Oxford University Press, 2002, chapter 5.

Office Hours:

If my office hours, (Tuesdays 3:00-4:00 and Wednesdays 10:00-11:00) 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@facstaff.wisc.edu with any specific questions, but if the question involves a matter of philosphical 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:

Plagiarism is a serious offense. All sources and assistance used in preparing your papers must be precisely and explicitly acknowledged. 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.