The Nature of Explanation

The Nature of Explanation PDF

Author: K. J. W. Craik

Publisher: CUP Archive

Published: 1967-10

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 9780521094450

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In his only complete work of any length, Kenneth Craik considers thought as a term for the conscious working of a highly complex machine.

The Nature of Scientific Explanation

The Nature of Scientific Explanation PDF

Author: Jude P. Dougherty

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2013-01-16

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 0813220149

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In his newest work, distinguished philosopher Jude P. Dougherty challenges contemporary empiricisms and other accounts of science that reduce it to description and prediction.

The Nature of Explanation

The Nature of Explanation PDF

Author: Peter Achinstein

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 019503743X

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A new approach to the definition of scientific explanation. Unlike standard theories, it focuses initially on the explaining act itself, to which reference must be made in order to understand what an explanation is and how it can be evaluated in the sciences.

The Nature of Explanation

The Nature of Explanation PDF

Author: Peter Achinstein

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1985-10-31

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 0198020767

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Offering a new approach to scientific explanation, this book focuses initially on the explaining act itself. From that act, a "product" emerges: an explanation. To understand what that product is, as well as how it can be evaluated in the sciences, reference must be made to the concept of the explaining act. Following an account of the explaining act, its product, and the evaluation of explanations, the theory is brought to bear on these issues: Why have the standard models of scientific explanation been unsuccessful, and can there be a model of the type sought? What is causal explanation, and must explanation in the sciences be causal? What is a functional explanation? The "illocutionary" theory of explanation developed at the outset is used in discussing these issues, and contrasting philosophical viewpoints are assessed.

The Nature of Explanation in Social Sciences

The Nature of Explanation in Social Sciences PDF

Author: Rajesh Ranjan Tiwari

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-07-07

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 1000903621

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This book provides a comprehensive overview of the nature of explanations as given in both natural and social sciences. It discusses models of explanation adopted in natural and social sciences. The author also elaborates upon naturalistic and anti-naturalistic views and other types of explanations such as functional, purposive, etc in social science. The volume elaborates upon themes like bridge principle; functional explanation; purposive explanation; teleological explanation; prediction; methodological individualism; methodological collectivism; illocutionary redescription; principle of action; and dispositional explanations to understand whether the explanations given in the realm of social sciences are the same or different from the explanations that are given in the field of natural sciences. This introductory book is a must read for students and scholars of philosophy of science, logic, science and technology studies, social sciences and philosophy in general.

The Nature of Scientific Thinking

The Nature of Scientific Thinking PDF

Author: J. Faye

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-10-15

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1137389834

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Scientific thinking must be understood as an activity. The acts of interpretation, representation, and explanation are the cognitive processes by which scientific thinking leads to understanding. The book explores the nature of these processes and describes how scientific thinking can only be grasped from a pragmatic perspective.

Hume’s Science of Human Nature

Hume’s Science of Human Nature PDF

Author: David Landy

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-22

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1351383248

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Hume’s Science of Human Nature is an investigation of the philosophical commitments underlying Hume's methodology in pursuing what he calls ‘the science of human nature’. It argues that Hume understands scientific explanation as aiming at explaining the inductively-established universal regularities discovered in experience via an appeal to the nature of the substance underlying manifest phenomena. For years, scholars have taken Hume to employ a deliberately shallow and demonstrably untenable notion of scientific explanation. By contrast, Hume’s Science of Human Nature sets out to update our understanding of Hume’s methodology by using a more sophisticated picture of science as a model.

Beyond Evolution

Beyond Evolution PDF

Author: Anthony O'Hear

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 1997-10-09

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0191519669

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Anthony O'Hear takes a stand against the fashion for explaining human behaviour in terms of evolution. He maintains, controversially, that while the theory of evolution is successful in explaining the development of the natural world in general, it is of limited value when applied to the human world. Because of our reflectiveness and our rationality we take on goals and ideals which cannot be justified in terms of survival-promotion or reproductive advantage. O'Hear examines the nature of human self-consciousness, and argues that evolutionary theory cannot give a satisfactory account of such distinctive facets of human life as the quest for knowledge, moral sense, and the appreciation of beauty; in these we transcend our biological origins. It is our rationality that allows each of us to go beyond not only our biological but also our cultural inheritance: as the author says in the Preface, 'we are prisoners neither of our genes nor of the ideas we encounter as we each make our personal and individual way through life'.