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. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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Ian Hacking on Explanation - Dictionary of Arguments
I 98ff Good explanation/Hacking: a good explanation displays context. However, the same entities can always be explained otherwise. >Additional hypotheses. VsReichenbach/VsSalmon: that we arrive at the same result on various ways, that proves nothing. I 98 The reality is not part of the explanation. >Reality. I 100 It follows: VsConvergence theory: convergence theory is only cumulative. Convergence: is not itself focussed on convergence. >Convergence, cf. >Regularities. I 103 HackingVsPopper: success is no confirmation of a declaration. It shows nothing more than that we reasonably live in a reasonable world (>adequacy, as Aristotle). >Adequacy, >Best Explanation, >Confirmation, >Success, >K. Popper._____________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. |
Hacking I I. Hacking Representing and Intervening. Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science, Cambridge/New York/Oakleigh 1983 German Edition: Einführung in die Philosophie der Naturwissenschaften Stuttgart 1996 |