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E-book
Author Strevens, Michael

Title Depth an account of scientific explanation / Michael Strevens
Edition 1st Harvard University Press pbk. ed
Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Approaches to explanation -- Causal and explanatory relevance -- The kairetic account of difference-making -- The kairetic account of explanation -- Extending the kairetic account -- Event explanation and causal claims -- Regularity explanation -- Abstraction in regularity explanation -- Approaches to probabilistic explanation -- Kairetic explanation of frequencies -- Kairetic explanation of single outcomes -- Looking outward -- Looking inward
Summary "What does it mean for scientists to truly understand, rather than to merely describe, how the world works? Michael Strevens proposes a novel theory of scientific explanation and understanding that overhauls and augments the familiar causal approach to explanation. What is replaced is the test for explanatorily relevant causal information: Strevens discards the usual criterion of counterfactual dependence in favor of a criterion that turns on a process of progressive abstraction away from a fully detailed, physical causal story. The augmentations include the introduction of a new, non-causal explanatory relevance relation - entanglement - and an independent theory of the role of black-boxing and functional specification in explanation." "The result is an account of explanation that has especially significant consequences for the higher-level sciences: biology, psychology, economics, and other social sciences."--Jacket
Subject Causation.
Explanation.
Science -- Philosophy.
Causation
Explanation
Science -- Philosophy
Kausale Erklärung
Naturwissenschaften
Philosophie
Wahrscheinlichkeit
Wissenschaftstheorie
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674260795
0674260791