Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
| |||
|
| |||
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Gerhard Schurz on Explanation - Dictionary of Arguments
I 30 Explanation/Schurz: Explanation concerns only facts that have already occurred. Otherwise it refers to a prediction. Both have the form of deductive or probabilistic arguments. >Facts, >States of affairs, >Prediction, >Probability, >Deduction. I 92 Notation: II- : "follows logically". Explanation scheme/logical form/explanation/Schurz: strict all proposition & singular proposition II- singular proposition. All A are K and a is A II- a is K. Falsification scheme/falsification/logical form/Schurz: FS I: singular proposition falsifies strict universal sentence. singular sentence II- negation of strict universal sentence a is A and not K II- not all A are K FS II: existence sentence falsifies strict all proposition There is an A that is not a K II- not all A are K. >Universal sentence. I 225 Explanation/law/Schurz: More important than explanation of events is explanation of laws by higher-level theories. Problem: irrelevance and redundancy. Therefore Hempel considered laws only implicitly. Logical form: "T U A / G" (U: union). T: is a set of laws or axioms of theories, all of which are essentially quantified and some of which are essentially general. A: (antecedent) is a (possibly empty) set of sing propositions or localized existential propositions. G: an essentially general proposition. Ex Theoretical explanation of planetary orbits Ex Theoretical explanation of Piaget's law of development. I 227 Causality/explanation/causal explanation/Schurz: problem: Ex "If A, then E will be the case": is L equivalent with its contraposition. "If Not E, then Not A was the case". Problem: "Not E" cannot be a cause of Not A! >Causal explanation/Schurz._____________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. |
Schu I G. Schurz Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006 |
||
> Counter arguments against Schurz
> Counter arguments in relation to Explanation
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-25