Explaining Explanation

In this book, The Art of Explanation: General Chemistry, the author shares with you the key concepts of general chemistry with problems sets that allow you to not only work out problems but rather define and discuss the principles of chemistry. When you master understanding the definition, a light bulb in your head will turn on and thus you will know "it" and will be able to explain "it"! You will have mastered the art of explanation!

The Quantum of Explanation advances a bold new theory of how explanation ought to be understood in philosophical and cosmological inquiries. Using a complete interpretation of Alfred North Whitehead’s

Bringing sophisticated philosophy to bear on real-life historiography, Values, Objectivity, and Explanation in Historiography rekindles and invigorates the debate on two perennials in the theory and m

Despite the outpouring of books, movies, museums, memorials, and courses devoted to the Holocaust, a coherent explanation of why such ghastly carnage erupted from the heart of civilized Europe in the

Explaining phenomena is one of the main activities in which scientists engage. This book proposes a new philosophical theory of scientific explanation by developing and defending the position of explanatory pluralism with the help of the notion of 'explanatory games'. Mantzavinos provides a descriptive account of the explanatory activity of scientists in different domains and shows how they differ from commonsensical explanations offered in everyday life by ordinary people and also from explanations offered in religious contexts. He also shows how an evaluation and a critical appraisal of explanations put forward in different social arenas can take place on the basis of different values. Explanatory Pluralism provides solutions to all important descriptive and normative problems of the philosophical theory of explanation as illustrated in sophisticated case studies from economics and medicine, but also from mythology and religion.

This volume develops a philosophical account that reveals that the major characteristics that make an explanation in the life sciences reductive. The main theme it addresses is defining characteristic

Criminology: Explaining Crime and Its Context, 9th edition, is a highly acclaimed textbook offering a broad perspective on criminological theory. It provides students of criminology and sociology with

"The Holocaust has long seemed incomprehensible, a monumental crime that beggars our powers of description and explanation. Historians have probed the many sources of this tragedy, but no account has

Norms are a pervasive yet mysterious feature of social life. In Explaining Norms, four philosophers and social scientists team up to grapple with some of the many mysteries, offering a comprehensive a

This volume distinguishes between two main traditions in the philosophy of science - the aristotelian, with its stress on explanation in terms of purpose and intentionality, and the galilean, which ta

The Explanation of Social Action is a sustained critique of the conventional understanding of what it means to "explain" something in the social sciences. It makes the strong argument that the traditi

Explaining U.S. Imprisonment examines women in prison, minorities, the historical path to the modern prison, a wide range of contemporary issues, and social influences on prison reform. While focusin

Explaining U.S. Imprisonment examines women in prison, minorities, the historical path to the modern prison, a wide range of contemporary issues, and social influences on prison reform. While focusin

In this selection of essays from the past two decades, Vayda focuses on research and explanation concerned with causes of concrete events, especially human actions and the environmental changes brough

What does it mean for scientists to truly understand, rather than to merely describe, how the world works? Michael Strevens proposes a novel theory of scientific explanation and understanding that ove

This 2001 book offers an examination of functional explanation as it is used in biology and the social sciences, and focuses on the kinds of philosophical presuppositions that such explanations carry with them. It tackles such questions as: why are some things explained functionally while others are not? What do the functional explanations tell us about how these objects are conceptualized? What do we commit ourselves to when we give and take functional explanations in the life sciences and the social sciences? McLaughlin gives a critical review of the debate on functional explanation in the philosophy of science. He discusses the history of the philosophical question of teleology, and provides a comprehensive review of the post-war literature on functional explanation. What Functions Explain provides a sophisticated and detailed Aristotelian analysis of our concept of natural functions, and offers a positive contribution to the ongoing debate on the topic.

This collection of original essays on the topics of causation and explanation offersreaders a state-of-the-art view of current work in these areas. The book is notable for itsinterdisciplinary charact

This collection of original essays on the topics of causation and explanation offers readers a state-of-the-art view of current work in these areas. The book is notable for its interdisciplinary char

This volume distinguishes between two main traditions in the philosophy of science - the aristotelian, with its stress on explanation in terms of purpose and intentionality, and the galilean, which ta

Providing a direct sightline into communication theory, Explaining Communication presents explanations of communication theories by some of the foremost scholars working in communication today. With c

Offering a direct sightline into communication theory, Explaining Communication provides in-depth discussions of communication theories by some of the foremost scholars working in communication today

Explaining Creativity is an accessible introduction to the latest scientific research on creativity. In the last 50 yearss, psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists have increasingly studied

"Explanation and Understanding, perhaps von Wright's best-known book, showed the influence of Wittgenstein, but marked a clean break with the positivism of his youth. He suggested that human action co

How do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses, and making inferences? According to the model of Inference to the Best Explanation, we work out what to infer from the evidence by thinking ab

Describes the problems and issues involved in generating interactive user-sensitive explanations. Explanation and Interaction describes the problems and issues involved in generating interactive use

Derivation and Explanation in the Minimalist Program presents accessible, cutting edge research on an enduring and fundamental question confronting all linguistic inquiry – the respective roles of der

Derivation and Explanation in the Minimalist Program presents accessible, cutting edge research on an enduring and fundamental question confronting all linguistic inquiry – the respective roles of der

Explaining Congressional-Presidential Relations examines government activities involving direct interactions between presidents and Congress and considers whether they are influenced by executive, leg

Is explaining science just an art, or can it be described, taught and learned? That is the question posed by this book. From extensive classroom observations, the authors give vivid descriptions of ho

This volume provides an introduction to and review of key contemporary debates concerning connectionism, and the nature of explanation and methodology in cognitive psychology. The first debate centers

The explanation versus understanding debate was important to the philosophy of thesocial sciences from the time of Dilthey and Weber through the work of Popper and Hempel. In recentyears, with the dev

The challenge of explaining the emotions has engaged the attention of the best minds in philosophy and science throughout history. Part of the fascination has been that the emotions resist classifica

Scientific Explanation was first published in 1962. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the origi

In this Element, we extend our earlier treatment of biology's first law. The law says that in any evolutionary system in which there is variation and heredity, there is a tendency for diversity and complexity to increase. The law plays the same role in biology that Newton's first law plays in physics, explaining what biological systems are expected to do when no forces act, in other words, what happens when nothing happens. Here we offer a deeper explanation of certain features of the law, develop a quantitative version of it, and explore its consequences for our understanding of diversity and complexity.

From antiquity to the end of the twentieth century, philosophical discussions of understanding remained undeveloped, guided by a 'received view' that takes understanding to be nothing more than knowledge of an explanation. More recently, however, this received view has been criticized, and bold new philosophical proposals about understanding have emerged in its place. In this book, Kareem Khalifa argues that the received view should be revised but not abandoned. In doing so, he clarifies and answers the most central questions in this burgeoning field of philosophical research: what kinds of cognitive abilities are involved in understanding? What is the relationship between the understanding that explanations provide and the understanding that experts have of broader subject matters? Can there be understanding without explanation? How can one understand something on the basis of falsehoods? Is understanding a species of knowledge? What is the value of understanding?

While countless books have been written on Jesus, Explaining Jesus integrates insights from across the disciplines, including social and natural sciences. This book explores the possibilities of a sec

This book contains more than 15 essays that explore issues in truth, existence, and explanation. It features cutting-edge research in the philosophy of mathematics and logic.Renowned philosophers, mat

Dr. Michael Haas’ book, United States Diplomacy with North Korea and Vietnam: Explaining Failure and Success, aims to explain a significant, beguiling discrepancy in U.S. foreign relations: How has Am

Explanations are important to us in many contexts: in science, mathematics, philosophy, and also in everyday and juridical contexts. But what is an explanation? In the philosophical study of explanati

This collection brings together a set of new papers that advance the debate concerning the nature of explanation in mind and brain science, and help to clarify the prospects for bonafide integration a