Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-26T20:50:35.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Logic of Explanatory Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jonah N. Schupbach  and
Jan Sprenger
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article introduces and defends a probabilistic measure of the explanatory power that a particular explanans has over its explanandum. To this end, we propose several intuitive, formal conditions of adequacy for an account of explanatory power. Then, we show that these conditions are uniquely satisfied by one particular probabilistic function. We proceed to strengthen the case for this measure of explanatory power by proving several theorems, all of which show that this measure neatly corresponds to our explanatory intuitions. Finally, we briefly describe some promising future projects inspired by our account.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 105 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © 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

‡

For helpful correspondence on earlier versions of this article, we would like to thank David Atkinson, Vincenzo Crupi, John Earman, Theo Kuipers, Edouard Machery, John Norton, Jeanne Peijnenburg, Jan-Willem Romeijn, Tomoji Shogenji, audiences at PROGIC 09 (Groningen), the ESF Workshop (Woudschouten), and FEW 2010 (Konstanz), and especially Stephan Hartmann. Jan Sprenger would like to thank the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, which supported his work on this article with Veni grant 016.104.079. Jonah N. Schupbach would like to thank Tilburg University's Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science, which supported him with a research fellowship during the time that he worked on this article.

References

Carnap, Rudolf. 1950. Logical Foundations of Probability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael. 1974. “Explanation and Scientific Understanding.” Journal of Philosophy 71 (1): 5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, Clark. 1980. “Explanations, Tests, Unity and Necessity.” Nous 14:31–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Good, I. J. 1960. “Weight of Evidence, Corroboration, Explanatory Power, Information and the Utility of Experiments.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B 22 (2): 319–31.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G. 1965. “Aspects of Scientific Explanation.” In Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science, 331–496. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G., and Oppenheim, Paul. 1948. “Studies in the Logic of Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 15 (2): 135–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffrey, Richard. 1969. “Statistical Explanation versus Statistical Inference.” In Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel, ed. Rescher, Nicholas, 104–13. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Kemeny, John G., and Oppenheim, Paul. 1952. “Degree of Factual Support.” Philosophy of Science 19:307–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1989. “Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure of the World.” In Scientific Explanation, ed. Kitcher, Philip and Salmon, Wesley, 410–505. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Lipton, Peter. 2004. Inference to the Best Explanation. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Machamer, Peter, Darden, Lindley, and Craver, Carl F.. 2000. “Thinking about Mechanisms.” Philosophy of Science 67 (1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrew, Timothy. 2003. “Confirmation, Heuristics, and Explanatory Reasoning.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 54:553–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1931–35. The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. 1–6, ed. Hartshorne, Charles and Weiss, Paul. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1958. The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. 7–8, ed. Burks, Arthur W.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl R. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. 1971. “Statistical Explanation.” In Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance, ed. Salmon, Wesley C., 29–87. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C.. 1984. Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schupbach, Jonah N. Forthcoming. “Comparing Probabilistic Measures of Explanatory Power.” Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Woodward, James. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, James. 2009. “Scientific Explanation.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.Google Scholar