PHIL 2301 Lecture : The Pragmatic of Explanation.docx
Document Summary
The second is to show why (or in what sense) explanation is a virtue. Presumably we have no explanation unless we have a good theory; one which is independently worthy or acceptance. The first is that explanation is a relation simply between a theory or hypothesis and the phenomena or facts, just like truth for example. The second is that explanatory power cannot be logically separated from certain other virtues of a theory, notably truth or acceptability. The third is that explanation is the overriding virtue, the end of scientific inquiry. Darwin [also] speaks in the latter idiom: in scientific investigations it is permitted to invent any hypothesis, and if it explains various large and independent classes of facts in rises to the rank of a well-grounded theory . Various philosophers have held that explanation logically requires true (or acceptable) theories as premises.
