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A Pragmatic Approach to Explanations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Peter Gärdenfors
Peter Gärdenfors*
Affiliation:
University of Lund, Sweden
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Abstract

It is argued that it is not sufficient to consider only the sentences included in the explanans and explanandum when determining whether they constitute an explanation, but these sentences must always be evaluated relative to a knowledge situation. The central criterion on an explanation is that the explanans in a non-trivial way increases the belief value of the explanandum, where the belief value of a sentence is determined from the given knowledge situation. The outlined theory of explanations is applied to some well-known examples and is also compared to other theories of explanation.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , September 1980 , pp. 404 - 423
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 by Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I wish to thank Bengt Hansson for helpful comments on earlier drafts. When revising the paper I have also benefitted from the first draft of Stegmüller (manuscript, 1978).

References

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