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Reintroducing Prediction to Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Heather E. Douglas
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Abstract

Although prediction has been largely absent from discussions of explanation for the past 40 years, theories of explanation can gain much from a reintroduction. I review the history that divorced prediction from explanation, examine the proliferation of models of explanation that followed, and argue that accounts of explanation have been impoverished by the neglect of prediction. Instead of a revival of the symmetry thesis, I suggest that explanation should be understood as a cognitive tool that assists us in generating new predictions. This view of explanation and prediction clarifies what makes an explanation scientific and why inference to the best explanation makes sense in science.

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Type
Research Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 76 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 444 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank Ted Richards, Gary Hardcastle, George Reisch, the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Research Group at the University of Tennessee, and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments.

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