[lit-ideas] Re: Patty Duke & The Apriori [part 2of 2]
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:21:25 -0230
Please see specific replies below -------->
Quoting John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>:
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 3:40 AM, Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx>wrote:
>
> >
> > I was raised to believe in the truth of the general idea that an
> > explanation of
> > P does not provide a justification of P. One must already believe state of
> > affairs P has occurred in order to ask for an explanation of P, but the
> > concept
> > of an argument disallows already believing the conclusion prior to the
> > provision
> > of premises (unless one is a professional politician or lawyer, of
> course.)
> > Thus
> > the explicandum is not a conclusion, and the explicans is not a reason,
> > according to the requirements of the space of reasons.
> >
John:
> I can't say "raised to believe"; didn't really get into logic until I went
> to college. But then I was taught a similar view of explanation, i.e., the
> specification of conditions both necessary and sufficient.
Walter:
I don't believe that explanations seek necessary and sufficient conditions of
the state of affairs or occurrences they seek to explain. Transcendental
analyses attempt that but not your garden variety empirical or normative
explanations. Explanations, as i understand them, identify causes of an
explicandum (the event to be explained) or they may offer teleological or
functional stories. These intend to provide sufficient conditions but
not necessary conditions. Zum beispiel, increases in sealevels attributed to
meltings of the polar icecaps is not an explanation offering necessary
conditions for the rise in sealevels - the conditions are only sufficient.
John:
> What intrigues me about Abbot's *heuristic is that, in a properly social
> scientific manner, he does not assume that he knows what an explanation is.
> Instead, he looks at what is going on when people offer what they call
> explanations:
Walter:
Yes, this piece of Heideggeriana has had its stock increase in value thanks to
the likes of Dennett and Brandom. The problem, though, is that such an approach
doesn't allow for mistakes in people's/groups' understandings of what
constitutes an explanation. Cutting off a chicken's head in order to see the
colour of its blood may, after all, not be a very reliable method of
determining which woman in the community is pregnant or will become pregnant.
John will, no doubt, remind us of the debates in the methodology of the social
sciences inaugurated by Peter Winch on the question of the rationality of
belief. (I pause to say that I believe there are very few books as short as
Winch's *The idea of a social science ....* that pack in as much profundity and
excitement as his does. But that's only if you ask me.)
John:
> Some are identifying bottlenecks in processes where effective
> intervention is possible. Some situate whatever is being "explained" in
> relation to what some scholarly community takes to be common sense. Some
> offer arguments that are elegant, surprising, or both. Whichever approach is
> adopted, the "explanation" proceeds until it suffices, i.e., until the
> scholar (or the community of scholars to whom the scholar belongs) says,
> "OK," and moves on to other projects. *
Walter: This is a tad too Garfinkelishly "ethno," or Kuhnian, or Latour and
Woolgarish for me. Let us not confuse the sociology of science with the
philosophy of science. We all know that Sir Karl won the debate with Mr. Tom
Kuhn long ago.
John:
> None of these approaches satisfy the requirement of specifying both
> necessary and sufficient conditions. But if the philosophical approach at
> this point is nothing more than pointing a finger and scolding, that seems
> a bit infantile. In contrast, Abbot's approach offers the student some
> guidance in sorting out what it is that scholars are trying to do and what
> sufficing conditions must be met to call a project done and move on to
> something else. In an imperfect world where knowledge is always partial,
> this seems a useful contribution.
>
> John
Walter: The discipline of philosophy can continue in its role as impartial
dialogical guardian of rationality without such resources as pointing fingers
or such sanctions as scoldings. Recall that one of the most rigorous and
demanding moral frameworks ever developed - Kant's account of the imperatives
that are categorical for all rationally autonomous persons as ends in
themselves - has almost nothing to say about fingers, scoldings, punishment or
retribution against offending parties.
Walter O.
MUN
>
>
> --
> John McCreery
> The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
> Tel. +81-45-314-9324
> jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.wordworks.jp/
>
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