Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g5fl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-31T05:15:12.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explanation and Subsumption

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Robert Cummins
Robert Cummins*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Quine once claimed that modal logic derived from a use-mention mistake (p. 196). In this paper, I will peddle an, equally outrageous claim: the thesis that subsumption is an essential goal of fundamental explanatory theorizing rests on a failure to distinguish explaining what made x happen from explaining why we believe what we do about what made x happen. I don't mean to suggest that the distinction wasn't noticed (except perhaps by Hume); only that it wasn't vigorously enforced. There have always been philosophers who assimilated a belief to its justification with malice aforethought.

Everyone knows that subsumption is not sufficient for explanation: the length of a pendulum is not explained by appeal to its period and the pendulum law, and emission spectra are not explained by Balmer's formula. But the spirit of the deductive-nomological account of explanation lives on in the belief that subsumption is an essential feature of an explanatory theory.

Type
Part V. Explanation
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1978 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1978 , 1978 , pp. 163 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I should like to thank John Koethe, Warren Ingber, David Zaret, and Paul Teller for their stimulating attempts to talk me out of most of what follows. I was similarly aided by stimulating audiences at Chicago Circle and The University of Wisconsin where I presented an earlier draft of this paper.

References

Cummins, Robert. “Functional Analysis.” The Journal of Philosophy 72(1975): 741–765.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, Robert. “States, Causes and the Law of Inertia.” Philosophical Studies 29(1976): 21–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Donald. “Actions, Reasons, and Causes.” The Journal of Philosophy 60(1963): 685–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Donald. “Causal Relations.” The Journal of Philosophy 64(1967): 691–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, C. and Oppenheim, P. “Studies in the Logic of Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 15(1948): 135–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, David. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. ed. Hendell, Charles W.. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955. (Originally published 1748 as Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Nature. Reprint of 1777 edition.)Google Scholar
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. ed. Selby-Bigge, L.A.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951. (Books I and II originally published 1739 and Book III 1740. Reprint of 1888 edition.)Google Scholar
Quine, W.V. Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Scriven, Michael. “Causation as Explanation.” Nous 9(1975): 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar