EXPLANATION AND UNDERSTANDING

Science has multiple goals: to describe the world, as it is now; to predict the future and to make inferences about the past. Science also aims to understand the world - to explain why it is the way it is. But what does it take to explain a phenomenon? How does science generate understanding and what does that take? In this thorough and clearly written introduction to scientific explanation, Arnon Levy explores the following problems and questions: the background to the topic of scientific explanation, particularly the questions of what an explanation is, what makes a good explanation and why seek them in the first place empiricism about explanation: Hempel’s deductive-nomological model and its problems unificationism about explanation: must good scientific explanations fit into an overall ‘explanatory store’? causation and explanation: Lewis’s description-based model, Woodward’s interventionist view and Strevens’s criterion of selection theory connections between explanation and understanding models, idealization and explanation non-causal explanation and explanation in non-scientific contexts the nature of understanding. Additional features, such as chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading and a glossary, make this an excellent resource for students of philosophy of science, metaphysics and epistemology.