Deutsche Gesellschaft
für phänomenologische Forschung

Zeitschrift | Band | Artikel

235492

Degree of explanation

Robert Northcott

pp. 3087-3105

Abstrakt

Partial explanations are everywhere. That is, explanations citing causes that explain some but not all of an effect are ubiquitous across science, and these in turn rely on the notion of degree of explanation. I argue that current accounts are seriously deficient. In particular, they do not incorporate adequately the way in which a cause’s explanatory importance varies with choice of explanandum. Using influential recent contrastive theories, I develop quantitative definitions that remedy this lacuna, and relate it to existing measures of degree of causation. Among other things, this reveals the precise role here of chance, as well as bearing on the relation between causal explanation and causation itself.

Publication details

Published in:

(2013) Synthese 190 (15).

Seiten: 3087-3105

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-012-0124-9

Referenz:

Northcott Robert (2013) „Degree of explanation“. Synthese 190 (15), 3087–3105.