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Aleatory Explanations Expanded

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Paul Humphreys
Paul Humphreys*
Affiliation:
The University of Virginia
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Extract

In my paper “Aleatory Explanations” (Humphreys 1981a) I presented the rudiments of a theory of explanation which had the following features:

  1. 1) Explanations of indeterministic phenomena are given by means of a specification of the contributing and counteracting causes involved;

  2. 2) Probability values are not themselves explanatory and explanations need not specify probability values;

  3. 3) Maximal specificity criteria are not part of the logical criteria of adequacy for explanations;

  4. 4) Partial explanations which are nevertheless true can thus be given;

  5. 5) Explanations of this kind show that the traditional ‘X because Y’ pattern of explanation is inadequate for indeterministic causal explanations and must be replaced by ‘X because Y, despite Z’.

In that paper, I restricted myself to explanations of events and their complements, involving only direct causes in two-state Markov chains.

Type
Part IV. Probabilistic Explanation
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1982 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1982 , 1982 , pp. 208 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 Philosophy of Science Association

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