Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1996 Explanation and Ontological Reasoning Dwayne Mulder Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Mulder, Dwayne, "Explanation and Ontological Reasoning" (1996). Dissertations. 3675. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/3675 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1996 Dwayne Mulder LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO EXPLANATION AND ONTOLOGICAL REASONING A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY BY DWAYNE HUDSON MULDER CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JANUARY, 1997 Copyright by Dwayne Hudson Mulder, © 1996 All rights reserved. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank Paul Moser for directing this dissertation and for years of valuable philosophical discussion, training, guidance, and support. He has been an encouraging and generous colleague and friend. I thank Suzanne Cunningham and J. D. Trout, not only for their valuable assistance in the completion of this dissertation but also for their very helpful and enjoyable philosophical discussions and friendship. I am grateful for the financial support I have received over the years from Loyola University of Chicago and the Schmitt Foundation, through graduate assistantships, a teaching fellowship, and the Schmitt dissertation fellowship, which allowed me to complete the lion's share of this work. Finally and most importantly I thank my wife, Pamela Van Halsema, for always encouraging me and tolerating me through the good times and the tough times of graduate school. To her I dedicate this dissertation. D.H.M. Chicago, Illinois May, 1996 iii CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 1 The Importance of Explanation Explanation and Existence Intuitions about Explanation Summary of Chapters 2. THE PHILOSOPHY OF EXPLANATION ............ 22 Why Study Explanation? What Is Explanation?-The Importance of Examples What We Don't Need from Theories of Explanation 3. METAPHYSICAL EXPLANATION . 55 What We Should Expect from the Philosophy of Explanation Plato on Adequate Explanation Aristotle on Adequate Explanation The Threat of Circularity Aristotle's Arguments for Substance based on Explanatory Considerations Rationalists on Adequate Explanation 4. EXPLANATION IN CONTEMPORARY ONTOLOGY .. 109 Examples of Explanation in Contemporary Ontological Reasoning iv Inference to the Best Explanation as the Basic Form of Nondeductive Inference Inference to the Best Explanation in the Philosophy of Science Inference to the Best Explanation in Ethics Inference to the Best Explanation in Epistemology Inference to the Best Explanation in the Philosophy of Mind The Explanation of Experience via Existence Claims: A Broad Sketch Explanation in Arguments Regarding Existence 5. HEMPEL'S ANALYSES OF EXPLANATION ......... 149 Deductive Explanation Statistical Explanation Modelling Explanation Hempel' s Method: Conceptual Analysis 6. CONCEPTS OF EXPLANATION, AND REALITY ......... 195 Two Types of Justification Causation in Scientific Explanation Objective Homogeneity The Statistical and the Propensity Interpretation of Probability Statements Intuitions Contrary to Salmon's Contrastive Why-Questions 7. EXPLANATION, UNDERSTANDING, AND ONTOLOGY ...... 230 Intuitions About Explanation, and Understanding The Subjective Sense of Understanding v The Connection Between Explanation and Understanding Understanding and an Ontological Background The Threat of Circularity Again Conclusion REFERENCES 274 VITA 285 vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Importance of Explanation Explanation is one of the most important, fundamental, and ubiquitous intellectual tasks we perform. Our need to know what is the case often subserves our desire to understand why things happen as they do. Perhaps this sounds peculiar, for we think of descriptive knowledge as being preliminary to explanatory knowledge in the sense that we must first know what exists and what happens in order to have something to explain, and we are often in the situation of knowing what is the case without knowing why it is the case. It turns out, however, that we often draw conclusions about what exists and what happens on the basis of how well those conclusions explain some set of observations. As David L. Miller puts it, "description without explanation is blind and sterile," although "explanation apart from description is incomplete and insignificant" (1946, 241). It is usually only when we are focussed on some specific task we must perform that explanation and understanding have merely secondary importance. A worker might not care at all why chemicals have to be combined in a certain ratio to accomplish a desired effect, but only that they actually do combine in that ratio and do produce that effect. An undergraduate might not care at all why existential instantiation in a proof in quantificational logic must introduce a new constant, but only that one must follow that rule on a test to get correct answers. In many other matters, however, it is highly 2 unsatisfactory to know what is the case without knowing why. It is not enough to know that a close friend has died, we need to know why. It is not enough to know that the car isn't working, we need to know why. It is not enough to know that the light from other galaxies is red-shifted, we need to know why. Knowledge without explanation is generally deeply unsatisfying and provocative. Explanation appears to be an important intellectual desideratum for humanity from the earliest periods of recorded history. One purpose of explanation is to engender understanding, and understanding is the most characteristic function of human reason, or the human intellect. Asking explanation-seeking questions and trying to answer them require intellectual creativity in an attempt to model the world, an activity that is most fully developed in us humans. Explanation remains today one of our foremost intellectual goals. Technology (practical know-how) is another highly prized commodity as well, however. We remain primarily tool-users. We continue to be occupied to a great extent with providing for ourselves and controlling our environment. Indeed, far too many still suffer deprivations with respect to the basic needs of life. While some people continue to struggle with irrigation systems, construction, and manufacture, others explore exotic technologies for curing diseases, playing recorded music, shopping by computer, and videotaping their eventful lives. Although we clearly desire more than mere know-how, it is unclear whether many people desire understanding through genuine explanations for its own sake or just as a means of advancing technology, a means of developing the next generation of video amusement. It is unclear whether most people see explanation of the world 3 around us as a primary goal and advanced technology as simply a fortunate by-product, or see technology as the primary goal and explanation as a means. Certainly, many people have put supreme value on explanation for its own sake, on pure theoretical science simply for the sake of greater understanding. Just as surely, others see value only in practical advances, perhaps because they tend to be more easily marketable. Even these latter people, however, would assign a high value to explanation insofar as it Ca.n be put into service for the advancement of technology and practical know-how. In book I, chapter 1 of the Metaphysics, Aristotle comments on the value of explanatory knowledge for its own sake, calling it the essence of wisdom. With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to art, and men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience .... But yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience ... and this because the former know the cause, but the latter do not. For men of experience know that the thing is so, but do not know why, while the others know the 'why' and the cause (981a13-31, 1941, 689-690). Explanation is at the heart of philosophy. A primary task of philosophy is to help us understand the world and ourselves. Western philosophy originates in the attempts of ancient Greek cosmologists to understand the world by finding a rational order in the basic elements of what exists. Socrates and Plato sought primarily explanations of who we are and why we think and behave as we do in terms of a human nature. Most philosophers have tried to explain how we come to know about the world, why the world has the most general features that it does, and why we make the value judgments we do. 4 Explanation is indispensible to science, even though a large part of science consists also in discovery. The discovery of the outer planets, the discovery of DNA, the discovery of galaxies and quasars, the discovery of tectonic plates-these and many other discoveries serve as markers of the great achievements of science. Science discovers not only things in the physical world but also laws describing the regular behavior of things