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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R. Nozick on Explanation - Dictionary of Arguments
II 10 Explanation/Nozick: not based on arguments - and not on evidence - because an evidence provides no understanding. >Understanding, >Argumentation, >Proofs, >Provability, >Evidence. Hypotheses that are needed in an explanation must not be known to be true. >Hypotheses, >Knowledge. II 12 Explanation/Nozick: locates something in the topicality. >Actuality. Understanding: localizes something in the space of possibilities. >Possibility, >Truth conditions, cf. >Understanding/Dummett. II 115 Existence/explanation/Leibniz/Nozick: each factor that should explain why there is anything at all, will be part itself of what needs to be explained. cf. >Existence/Leibniz. Explanation: always happens in terms of something else - one cannot explain everything, but nothing is inexplicable in principle. >Concepts, >Description levels, >Levels/order. II 116 Explanation/Nozick: is irreflexive, asymmetric and transitive: - irreflexive: nothing explains itself. Asymmetrical: if X explains Y then Y does not explain X (not reversible). II 117 Transitive: if X explains Y and Y explains Z, then X explains Z. - With that a strict partial order is established. >Partial order. II 118f Explanation/existence/Nozick: another possibility: explanation from laws or theories. >Laws, >Theories. Question: why is there then such theories and laws. Ultimate justification/self-explanation: could one last law subsume itself? >Ultimate justification. Last law: must have any characteristic C - all other laws. Problem: truth is not proven from form. >Truth, >Proofs, >Provability. II 120 Explanation/level/stage/Nozick: some authors: the statement must be deeper than the explained. KripkeVs: new theory: statements themselves seek the appropriate level - the highest level/stage/Kripke: those to which the sentence to its reference is applied to. >Truth/Kripke, >S.A. Kripke, >Fixped points/Kripke. Nozick: then P has to be, when used in a deduction, one level lower than its instance - then a deduced statement is lower when it subsumes something than when it is subsumed. >Deduction. II 120 Self-explanation/Nozick: self subsumption explains itself in the quantifier logic - Otherwise:. explanation is irreflexive - that means, it cannot explain itself. Bare facts/Nozick: a) something that cannot be explained by something else b) weaker: something that cannot be explained by something else. Then the explanatory self subsumption is a bare fact that explains itself. >Bare facts. II 305 Explanation/Nozick: one says, an explanation should not have less (for example, semantic) depth than the explained. >Semantics, >Semantic facts. II 308 Causation/Descartes: cannot be less deep than the effect (principle). >Cause, >Effect, >Description levels, >Levels/order, >Principles._____________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. |
No I R. Nozick Philosophical Explanations Oxford 1981 No II R., Nozick The Nature of Rationality 1994 |
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> Counter arguments against Nozick
> Counter arguments in relation to Explanation
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-16