Instructor: Brad Skow.
Class Meetings: Thursdays, 2pm, 8th floor.
Description: We will answer all of the following questions --- and more!
What is explanation?
Reductionism is the thesis that all "high level" phenomena can be completely explained in terms of "low level" phenomena: there is a complete explanation of the behavior of traffic jams on I-93 that talks only of protons, electrons, etc., and the laws governing them; there is a complete explanation of the extinction of the dodo that talks only of the behavior of individual organisms; there is a complete explanation of the behavior of the stock market that talks only of the interests and actions of individual stock traders. Is reductionism true?
Suppose you have two explanations of the same phenomenon. What is it for one of them to be deeper than the other?
Can chancy events be explained? If so, what role does the event's chance play in its explanation?
Can there be probabilistic explanations of phenomena when the laws are deterministic?
Are there mathematical explanations of physical phenomena?
Can mathematical truths be explained? If so, what does it take to do so?
February 9: History of Philosophy of Explanation (explainer: Brad)
Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation (optional).
Lewis, Causal Explanation (optional).
February 16: Contrastive Explanation (explainer: Melissa)
Garfinkel, Intro, Ch 1.
February 23: Reductionism, I (explainer: Jay)
Garfinkel, Ch 2.
March 1: Reductionism, II (Explainer: Jeff)
Sober, The Multiple Realizability Argument Against Reductionism.
Lange, Natural Laws in Scientific Practice, excerpt.
March 8: Individualism in Social Thought (Explainer: Arden)
Garfinkel, Ch 3, 4.
March 15: Garfinkel's Morals
Garfinkel, Ch 5, 6.
March 22: Explanatory Depth, I (Explainer: Brendan)
Strevens, The Causal and Unification Approaches to Explanation Unified --- Causally.
Batterman, A 'Modern' (=Victorian?) Attitude Toward Scientific Understanding.
April 5: Explanatory Depth, II (Explainer: Katya)
Weslake, Explanatory Depth.
Woodward and Hitchcock, Plumbing Explanatory Depth.
April 12: The Role of Chance in Explanation, I. (Explainer: Jack)
Railton, Probability, Explanation, and Information.
Humphreys, Aleatory Explanations.
Strevens, Do Large Probabilities Explain Better?
April 19: The Role of Chance in Explanation, II. (Explainer: Lyndal)
Batterman, Explanatory Instability.
April 26: The Role of Mathematics in Explanation. (Explainer: Said)
Baker, Are there Genuine Mathematical Explanations of Physical Phenomena? (main reading)
Daly and Langford, Mathematical Explanation and Indispensability Arguments, sections I, II, and IV. (supplementary).
Baker and Colyvan, Indexing and Mathematical Explanation. (supplementary)
May 3: The Role of Explanation in Mathematics. (Explainer: Neil)
List of mathematical explanations we will discuss in class (at least glance at this before reading the Steiner).
Some other examples which we may discuss are in this paper.
Steiner, Mathematical Explanation.
May 10: Student Paper Presentations.
May 17: Something Completely Different.
Velleman, Narrative Explanation.