This is an explanation-seeking why question. To answer it, III Quite often, modern science is successful in its aim of supplying, says Hempel, we must construct an argument whose conclusion is explanations. For example, chemists can explain why sodium turns 'sugar dissolves in water' and whose premisses tell us why this yellow when it burns. Astronomers can explain why solar eclipses conclusion is true. The task of providing an account of scientific occur when they do. Economists can explain why the yen declined explanation then becomes the task of characterizing precisely the in value in the s.
Geneticists can explain why male baldness relation that must hold between a set of premisses and a conclusion, tends to run in families. Neurophysiologists can explain why in order for the former to count as an explanation of the latter.
That extreme oxygen deprivation leads to brain damage. You can was the problem Hempel set himself. Hempel's answer to the problem was three-fold. Firstly, the premisses should entail the conclusion, i. What exactly does it a deductive one. Secondly, the premisses should all be true. Thirdly, mean to say that a phenomenon can be 'explained' by science? This the premisses should consist of at least one general law.
General is a question that has exercised philosophers since Aristotle, but our laws are things such as 'all metals conduct electricity', 'a body's starting point will be a famous account of scientific explanation put acceleration varies inversely with its mass', 'all plants contain forward in the s by the American philosopher Carl Hempel. For example, we might wish to explain contains chlorophyll' and so on.
General laws are sometimes called why exposure to the sun leads to skin cancer. This is a general law, 'laws of nature'. Hempel allowed that a scientific explanation could not a particular fact. To explain it, we would need to deduce it from appeal to particular facts as well as general laws, but he held that at still more fundamental laws - presumably, laws about the impact of least one general law was always essential. So to explain a radiation on skin cells, combined with particular facts about the phenomenon, on Hempel's conception, is to show that its occurrence amount of radiation in sunlight.
So the structure of a scientific follows deductively from a general law, perhaps supplemented by explanation is essentially the same, whether the explanandum, i. To illustrate, suppose I am trying to explain why the plant on my It is easy to see why Hempel's model is called the covering law desk has died.
I might offer the following explanation. Owing to the model of explanation. For according to the model, the essence of poor light in my study, no sunlight has been reaching the plant; but explanation is to show that the phenomenon to be explained is sunlight is necessary for a plant to photosynthesize; and without 'covered' by some general law of nature.
There is certainly photosynthesis a plant cannot make the carbohydrates it needs to something appealing about this idea. For showing that a survive, and so will die; therefore my plant died. It explains the death of the plant by the mystery out ofit - it renders it more intelligible. After Newton, there was Schematically, Hempel's model of explanation can be written as no longer any mystery about why planetary orbits are elliptical.
For example, if you ask someone why Athens is always Particular facts immersed in smog, they will probably say 'because of car exhaust pollution'. This is a perfectly acceptable scientific explanation, Phenomenon to be explained though it involves no mention of any laws.
But Hempel would say that if the explanation were spelled out in full detail, laws would The phenomenon to be explained is called the explanandum, and enter the picture. Presumably there is a law that says something like the general laws and particular facts that do the explaining are 'if carbon monoxide is released into the earth's atmosphere in called the explanans. The explanandum itself may be either a sufficient concentration, smog clouds will form'.
The full particular fact or a general law. In the example above, it was a explanation of why Athens is bathed in smog would cite this law, particular fact - the death of my plant. In practice, we wouldn't spell out the other hand, there are cases of things that do fit the covering law explanation in this much detail unless we were being very pedantic.
These cases suggest that Hempel's model is too covering law pattern. We will focus on counter-examples of the second sort. Hempel drew an interesting philosophical consequence from his model about the relation between explanation and prediction. He argued that these are two sides of the same coin. Whenever we give The problem of symmetry a covering law explanation of a phenomenon, the laws and Suppose you are lying on the beach on a sunny day, and you notice particular facts we cite would have enabled us to predict the that a flagpole is casting a shadow of 20 metres across the sand occurrence ofthe phenomenon, ifwe hadn't already known about it.
Figure 8. To illustrate, consider again Newton's explanation of why planetary orbits are elliptical. This fact was known long before Newton explained it using his theory ofgravity - it was discovered by Kepler. The f converse was also true, Hempel thought: every reliable prediction is 20 metre potentially an explanation.
To illustrate, suppose scientists predict shadow that mountain gorillas will be extinct by , based on information 8. A I5-metre flagpole casts a shadow of20 metres on the beach when about the destruction of their habitat. According to Hempel, the information they used to predict the gorillas' extinction before it happened will serve to explain that Someone asks you to explain why the shadow is 20 metres long.
Explanation and prediction are This is an explanation-seeking why question. A plausible answer structurally symmetric. These counter-examples fall into two shadow 20 metres long'. On the one hand, there are cases of genuine scientific explanations that do not fit the covering law model, even This looks like a perfectly good scientific explanation. And by approximately. These cases suggest that Hempel's model is too rewriting it in accordance with Hempel's schema, we can see that it strict - it excludes some bonafide scientific explanations.
In general, if x explains y, Flagpole is 15 metres high given the relevant laws and additional facts, then it will not be true that y explains x, given the same laws and facts. This is sometimes Phenomenon to be explained Shadow is 20 metres long expressed by saying that explanation is an asymmetric relation. Hempel's covering law model does not respect this asymmetry. For The length of the shadow is deduced from the height of the just as we can deduce the length of the shadow from the height of flagpole and the angle of elevation of the sun, along with the the flagpole, given the laws and additional facts, so we can deduce optical law that light travels in straight lines and the laws of the height of the flagpole from the length of the shadow.
In other trigonometry. Since these laws are true, and since the flagpole is words, the covering law model implies that explanation should be a indeed 15 metres high, the explanation satisfies Hempel's symmetric relation, but in fact it is asymmetric.
So Hempel's model requirements precisely. So far so good. The problem arises as fails to capture fully what it is to be a scientific explanation. Suppose we swap the explanandum - that the shadow.. The result is this: Hempel's thesis that explanation and prediction are two sides ofthe! The reason is obvious. Suppose you didn't know how t General law Light travels in straight lines high the flagpole was.
So in this example prediction and explanation Phenomenon to be explained Flagpole is 15 metres high part ways.
Information that serves to predict a fact before we know it does not serve to explain that same fact after we know it, which This 'explanation' clearly conforms to the covering law pattern too. The height of the flagpole is deduced from the length of the shadow it casts and the angle of elevation of the sun, along with the optical law that light travels in straight lines and the laws oftrigonometry.
The problem of irrelevance But it seems very odd to regard this as an explanation of why the Suppose a young child is in a hospital in a room full of pregnant flagpole is 15 metres high. The real explanation of why the flagpole women. The child notices that one person in the room - who is a is 15 metres high is presumably that a carpenter deliberately made it man called John - is not pregnant, and asks the doctor why not.
The so - it has nothing to do with the length of the shadow that it casts. People who take birth-control pills regularly scientific explanation that obviously is not.
Therefore, John has not become pregnant'. Let us suppose for the sake of argument that what the doctor says is it. For example, if an accident investigator is trying to explain an true - John is mentally ill and does indeed take birth-control pills, aeroplane crash, he is obviously looking for the cause ofthe crash.
Even so, the doctor's reply to the child is Indeed, the questions 'why did the plane crash? The correct explanation of why John has cause ofthe plane crash? Similarly, if not become pregnant, obviously, is that he is male and males cannot an ecologist is trying to explain why there is less biodiversity in the become pregnant. The link between the However, the explanation the doctor has given the child fits the concepts of explanation and causality is quite intimate.
The doctor deduces the phenomenon to be explained - that John is not pregnant - from the general law Impressed by this link, a number of philosophers have abandoned that people who take birth-control pills do not become pregnant the covering law account of explanation in favour of causality-based and the particular fact that John has been taking birth-control pills.
The details vary, but the basic idea behind these accounts Since both the general law and the particular fact are true, and since is that to explain a phenomenon is simply to say what caused it. But of course he hasn't.
Hence the phenomenon from a general law often just is to give its cause. OS as scientific explanations that intuitively are not. We saw that this explanation fits the covering law g l' Iif The general moral is that a good explanation of a phenomenon should contain information that is relevant to the phenomenon's model- for Newton deduced the shape of the planetary orbits from 5' his law of gravity, plus some additional facts.
But Newton's explanation was also a causal one, since elliptical planetary orbits I occurrence. This is where the doctor's reply to the child goes wrong. This is why the doctor's reply does not equivalent - in some cases they diverge. Indeed, many constitute a good answer to the child's question. Hempel's model philosophers favour a causal account of explanation precisely does not respect this crucial feature of our concept of explanation.
Recall the flagpole problem. Why do our intuitions tell us that the height of the flagpole explains the length Explanation and causality of the shadow, given the laws, but not vice-versa? Plausibly, Since the covering law model encounters so many problems, it is because the height of the flagpole is the cause of the shadow being natural to look for an alternative way of understanding scientific 20 metres long, but the shadow being 20 metres long is not the explanation.
Some philosophers believe that the key lies in the cause of the flagpole being 15 metres high. So unlike the covering concept of causality. This is quite an attractive suggestion. For Hempel subscribed shadow it casts. The general moral of the flagpole problem was that the covering Empiricism says that all our knowledge comes from experience. Now causality is obviously an asymmetric empiricist, and he argued that it is impossible to experience causal relation too: if x is the cause ofy, then y is not the cause ofx.
For relations. So he concluded that they don't exist - causality is a example, if the short-circuit caused the fire, then the fire clearly figment of our imagination! This is a very hard conclusion to accept. It is therefore quite plausible to Surely it is an objective fact that dropping glass vases causes them to suggest that the asymmetry of explanation derives from the break?
Hume denied this. He allowed that it is an objective fact that asymmetry of causality. If to explain a phenomenon is to say what most glass vases that have been dropped have in fact broken.
But caused it, then since causality is asymmetric we should expect our idea of causality includes more than this. It includes the idea of explanation to be asymmetric too - as it is. The covering law model a causal link between the dropping and the breaking, i.
No such links are to be found in the analyse the concept of scientific explanation without reference to world, according to Hume: all we see is a vase being dropped, and t causality. That John takes connection between the first event and the second. Causality is! But as a result of Hume's work, they have tended to regard why we think that the correct answer to the question 'why is John causality as a concept to be treated with great caution.
So to an not pregnant? The doctor's answer of the concept of causality would seem perverse. If one's goal is to satisfies the covering law model, but since it does not correctly clarifY the concept of scientific explanation, as Hempel's was, there identifY the cause ofthe phenomenon we wish to explain, it does not is little point in using notions that are equally in need of constitute a genuine explanation.
The general moral we drew from clarification themselves. And for empiricists, causality is definitely the birth-control pill example was that a genuine scientific in need of philosophical clarification.
So the fact that the covering explanation must contain information that is relevant to the law model makes no mention of causality was not a mere oversight explanandum. In effect, this is another way of saying that the on Hempel's part. In recent years, empiricism has declined explanation should tell us the explanandum's cause.
Causality- somewhat in popularity. Furthermore, many philosophers have based accounts of scientific explanation do not run up against the come to the conclusion that the concept of causality, although problem of irrelevance.
So the idea of a causality-based account of scientific It is easy to criticize Hempel for failing to respect the close link explanation seems more acceptable than it would have done in between causality and explanation, and many people have done so. Hempel's day. This is quite a plausible view. Molecular biologists they the whole story? Many philosophers say no, on the grounds are working hard on the problem of the origin oflife, and only a that certain scientific explanations do not seem to be causal.
One pessimist would say they will never solve it. Admittedly, the type of example stems from what are called 'theoretical problem is not easy, not least because it is very hard to know what identifications' in science. Theoretical identifications involve conditions on earth 4 billion years ago were like. But nonetheless, identiJYing one concept with another, usually drawn from a there is no reason to think that the origin oflife will never be different branch of science.
Similarly for the exceptional memories of autistic 'temperature is average molecular kinetic energy'. In both of these children. The science of memory is still in its infancy, and much cases, a familiar everyday concept is equated or identified with a remains to be discovered about the neurological basis of autism. Often, theoretical identifications Obviously we cannot guarantee that the explanation will eventually furnish us with what seem to be scientific explanations.
When be found. But given the number of explanatory successes that chemists discovered that water is H 2 0, they thereby explained modern science has already notched up, the smart money must what water is. Similarly, when physicists discovered that an be on many of today's unexplained facts eventually being object's temperature is the average kinetic energy of its molecules, explained too.
But neither of these '" explanations is causal. Being made of H 2 0 doesn't cause a substance to be water - it just is being water. Having a particular But does this mean that science can in principle explain everything? If these examples are accepted as legitimate scientific explanations, they explanation? This is not an easy question to answer. On the one hand, it seems arrogant to assert that science can explain everything. On the other hand, it seems short-sighted to assert that is' I suggest that causality-based accounts of explanation cannot be the ''t any particular phenomenon can never be explained scientifically.
For science changes and develops very fast, and a phenomenon that looks completely inexplicable from the vantage-point of today's science may be easily explained tomorrow. Can science explain everything? Modern science can explain a great deal about the world we live in. According to some philosophers, there is a purely logical reason But there are also numerous facts that have not been explained by why science will never be able to explain everything.
For in order to science, or at least not explained fully. The origin oflife is one such explain something, whatever it is, we need to invoke something else. We know that about 4 billion years ago, molecules with But what explains the second thing? To illustrate, recall that " , the ability to make copies of themselves appeared in the primeval Newton explained a diverse range of phenomena using his law of soup, and life evolved from there. But we do not understand how gravity. But what explains the law of gravity itself?
If someone asks these self-replicating molecules got there in the first place. Another why all bodies exert a gravitational force on each other, what should example is the fact that autistic children tend to have very good we tell them? Newton had no answer to this question. In memories. Numerous studies of autistic children have confirmed Newtonian science the law of gravity was a fundamental principle: this fact, but as yet nobody has succeeded in explaining it. However much the science of the future can goings-on in the brain.
Hence consciousness, or at least one explain, the explanations it gives will have to make use of certain important aspect of it, is scientifically inexplicable. Since nothing can explain itself, it follows that at least some of these laws and principles will Though quite compelling, this argument is very controversial and themselves remain unexplained.
Indeed, a well-known book published in by the philosopher Whatever one makes of this argument, it is undeniably very Daniel Dennett is defiantly entitled Consciousness Explained. It purports to show that some things will never be Supporters of the view that consciousness is scientifically explained, but does not tell us what they are.
However, some inexplicable are sometimes accused of having a lack of imagination. An example is explain the subjective aspect of conscious experience, can we not consciousness - the distinguishing feature of thinking, feeling imagine the emergence ofa radically different type of brain science, creatures such as ourselves and other higher animals. Much with radically different explanatory techniques, that does explain research into the nature of consciousness has been and continues to why our experiences feel the way they do?
There is a long tradition be done, by brain scientists, psychologists, and others. But a of philosophers trying to tell scientists what is and isn't possible,.. The basic argument is that ':' Explanation and reduction conscious experiences are fundamentally unlike anything else in the The different scientific disciplines are designed for explaining world, in that they have a 'subjective aspect'.
Consider, for example, different types of phenomena. To explain why rubber doesn't the experience of watching a terrifYing horror movie. This is an conduct electricity is a task for physics. To explain why turtles have experience with a very distinctive 'feel' to it; in the current jargon, such long lives is a task for biology. To explain why higher interest there is 'something that it is like' to have the experience.
In short, Neuroscientists may one day be able to give a detailed account of there is a division oflabour between the different sciences: each the complex goings-on in the brain that produce our feeling of specializes in explaining its own particular set of phenomena.
This terror. But will this explain why watching a horror movie feels the explains why the sciences are not usually in competition with one way it does, rather than feeling some other way? Many people another - why biologists, for example, do not worry that physicists believe that it will not. On this view, the scientific study of the brain and economists might encroach on their turf.
This is certainly interesting and valuable Nonetheless, it is widely held that the different branches of science information. However, it doesn't tell us why experiences with are not all on a par: some are more fundamental than others. Because the objects studied by the other sciences are individual ashtray is obviously a physical entity, like everything else ultimately composed of physical particles. Consider living in the universe. But the physical composition of the ashtrays could organisms, for example.
Living organisms are made up of cells, be very different - some might be made of glass, others of which are themselves made up of water, nucleic acids such as aluminium, others of plastic, and so on. And they will probably DNA , proteins, sugars, and lipids fats , all of which consist of differ in size, shape, and weight. There is virtually no limit on the molecules or long chains of molecules joined together. But range of different physical properties that an ashtray can have.
So it molecules are made up of atoms, which are physical particles. So is impossible to define the concept 'ashtray' in purely physical the objects biologists study are ultimately just very complex terms. We cannot find a true statement ofthe form 'x is an ashtray if physical entities. The same applies to the other sciences, even the and only if x is Take economics, for example. Economics studies the from the language of physics. This means that ashtrays are multiply behaviour of corporations and consumers in the market place, and realized at the physical level.
But consumers are human beings and corporations are made up of human beings; and human Philosophers have often invoked multiple realization to explain why beings are living organisms, hence physical entities. Since everything is made up of physical than skin cells. Cells ;- a ;, J! After all, it seems crazy to atoms will be very different in different cells. So the concept 'cell' :; suggest that physics might one day be able to explain the things that cannot be defined in terms drawn from fundamental physics.
There biology and economics explain. The prospect of deducing the laws is no true statement of the form 'x is a cell if and only if x is Whatever the physics of the future looks like, it is most ofmicrophysics. If this is correct, it means that fundamental physics unlikely to be capable ofpredicting economic downturns. It may takes up to minutes before you received it. Please note : you need to verify every book you want to send to your Kindle.
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Previously published in hardback as Doing Philosophy. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines including philosophy, psychology, and evolutionary biology, she emphasizes the nature and importance of trusting and being trusted, from our intimate bonds with significant others to our relationship with the state. This Very Short Introduction explores the theoretical and practical problems raised by objectivity, and also deals with the way in which particular understandings of objectivity impinge on social research, science, and art.
Yet there is much more to the debate than the clash of these extremes. As Thomas Dixon shows in this balanced and thought-provoking introduction, a whole range of views, subtle arguments, and fascinating perspectives can be taken on this complex and centuries-old subject. He explores not only the key philosophical questions that underlie the debate, but also highlights the social, political, and ethical contexts that have made 'science and religion' such a fraught and interesting topic in the modern world.
Along the way, he examines landmark historical episodes such as the Galileo affair, Charles Darwin's own religious and scientific odyssey, the Scopes 'Monkey Trial' in Tennessee in , and the Dover Area School Board case of , and includes perspectives from non-Christian religions and examples from across the physical, biological, and social sciences. After a short history, the author goes on to investigate the nature of scientific reasoning, scientific explanation and more.
But it is not just a question that philosophers ask. Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Alirio Rosales. A short summary of this paper. Samir Okasha: Evolution and the Levels of Selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press , pp. In , R. Lewontin provided a formulation according to which the theory of natural selection is composed of a set of general principles that apply to entities at different levels in the biological hierarchy.
Such formulation reveals the remarkable fact that the theory of natural selection does not privilege any particular level of biological organization. Diachronically viewed, units of selection and their levels are themselves evolutionary products.
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