Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Explanation: making a statement in relation to an event, a state, a change or an action that was described before by a deviating statement. The statement will often try to involve circumstances, history, logical premises, causes and causality. See also description, statements, theories, understanding, literal truth, best explanation, causality, cause, completeness._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Hartry Field on Explanation - Dictionary of Arguments
I 18 Explanation/Field: a) Def intrinsic explanation/Field: does not contain causally irrelevant entities (namely: mathematical entities) b) Def extrinsic explanation/Field: also contains causally irrelevant entities. For example, the attribution of finite sentences for the behavior of animals. Every good extrinsic explanation is based on a good intrinsic explanation. ((s) Field/(s): therefore only causally relevant should occur in the explanation. - in short: intrinsic explanation is causal.) I 20 Problem: then the properties of electrons cannot contain anything that requires mathematical entities. >Mathematical entities, >Platonism, >Ontology. I 111 Explanation/Application/Physics/Mathematics/Field: new: different than in Sience without numbers(1): Physics itself has an explanatory function. You need theories to explain physical phenomena. - This makes a nominalistic theory of proof superfluous. Platonism: Here the proof theory is an instrument of discovery, not just explanation. >Proof theory. Nominalist Model Theory: Problem: one cannot explain the applicability solely from the concept of conservativity. Therefore we need modal logic as an analog of Platonist model theory. >Modal logic, >Model theory. Then model theory is like physics. Otherwise, it is like the theory of proof: then we would not need a nominalistic analog of the model theory because it does not serve as an explanation, but only in order to find out something about possibility. >Nominalism. Then, in turn, we do not need to accept the truth of the statements. >Truth/Field. 1. H. Field, Science without numbers. Princeton New Jersey 1980_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Field I H. Field Realism, Mathematics and Modality Oxford New York 1989 Field II H. Field Truth and the Absence of Fact Oxford New York 2001 Field III H. Field Science without numbers Princeton New Jersey 1980 Field IV Hartry Field "Realism and Relativism", The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1982), pp. 553-67 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich, Aldershot 1994 |
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> Counter arguments against Field
> Counter arguments in relation to Explanation
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-16