Best Explanations

Author : Kevin McCain
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198746903
Total Pages : 315 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Best Explanations written by Kevin McCain and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty philosophers offer new essays examining the form of reasoning known as inference to the best explanation - widely used in science and in our everyday lives, yet still controversial. Best Explanations represents the state of the art when it comes to understanding, criticizing, and defending this form of reasoning.

Author : Kevin McCain
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191063908
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Best Explanations written by Kevin McCain and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explanatory reasoning is ubiquitous. Not only are rigorous inferences to the best explanation used pervasively in the sciences, this kind of reasoning is common in everyday life. Despite its widespread use, inference to the best explanation is still in need of precise formulation, and it remains controversial. On the one hand, supporters of explanationism take inference to the best explanation to be a justifying form of inference; some even take all justification to be a matter of explanatory reasoning. On the other hand, critics object that inference to the best explanation is not a fundamental form of inference, and some argue that we should be skeptical of inference to the best explanation in general. This volume brings together twenty philosophers to explore various aspects of inference to the best explanation and the debates surrounding it. These specially commissioned essays constitute the cutting edge of research on the role explanatory considerations play in epistemology and philosophy of science.

Author : Peter Lipton
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 9780415242035
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inference to the Best Explanation written by Peter Lipton and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2004 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inference to the Best Explanation is an unrivalled exposition of a theory of particular interest to students both of epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Author : Jonah N. Schupbach
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000884074
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Conjunctive Explanations written by Jonah N. Schupbach and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-12 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers and psychologists are increasingly investigating the conditions under which multiple explanations are better in conjunction than they are individually. This book brings together leading scholars to provide an interdisciplinary and unified discussion of such “conjunctive explanations.” The book starts with an introductory chapter expounding the notion of conjunctive explanation and motivating a multifaceted approach to its study. The remaining chapters are divided into three parts. Part I includes chapters on “The Nature of Conjunctive Explanations.” Each chapter illustrates distinct ways in which explanatory multiplicity is motivated by a careful study of the nature and concept of explanation. The second part (“Reasoning About Conjunctive Explanations”) includes chapters on the epistemology and logic of conjunctive explanations. Here the contributors propose and evaluate various norms for reasoning correctly about and to conjunctive explanations. Part III concerns “The Psychology of Conjunctive Explanations,” with contributions discussing conditions under which humans entertain and hold multiple explanations of single explananda simultaneously and the cognitive limitations and capacities for doing so. Conjunctive Explanations will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on explanation in philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophical logic, and cognitive psychology.

Author : John Cornwell
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191647438
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Explanations written by John Cornwell and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-04-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our lives, states of health, relationships, behaviour, experiences of the natural world, and the technologies that shape our contemporary existence are subject to a superfluity of competing, multi-faceted and sometimes incompatible explanations. Widespread confusion about the nature of 'explanation' and its scope and limits pervades popular exposition of the natural sciences, popular history and philosophy of science. This fascinating and intriguing book explores the way explanations work, why they vary between disciplines, periods, and cultures, and whether they have any necessary boundaries. In other words, Explanations aims to achieve a better understanding of explanation, both within the sciences and the humanities. It features contributions from expert writers from a wide range of disciplines, including science, philosophy, mathematics, and social anthropology.

Author : David Deutsch
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141969695
Total Pages : 571 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Beginning of Infinity written by David Deutsch and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-03-31 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility. 'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist 'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman

Author : Diarmid A. Finnegan
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000840409
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Conjunctive Explanations in Science and Religion written by Diarmid A. Finnegan and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the nature and relevance of conjunctive explanations in the context of science and religion. It explores questions concerning how scientific and religious explanations for features of the world or phenomena within it relate to each other and whether they might work together in mutually enriching ways. The chapters address topics including the relationship between Darwinian and teleological explanations, non-reductive explanations of mind and consciousness, and explanations of Christian faith and religious experience, while others explore theological and philosophical issues concerning the nature and feasibility of conjunctive explanations. Overall, the contributions help to provide conceptual clarity on how scientific and religious explanations might or might not work together conjunctively as well as exploring how these ideas relate to specific topics in science and religion more generally.

Author : Richard L Epstein
Publisher : Advanced Reasoning Forum
ISBN 13 : 0983452113
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cause and Effect, Conditionals, Explanations written by Richard L Epstein and published by Advanced Reasoning Forum. This book was released on 2018-11-05 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This series of books presents the fundamentals of reasoning well, in a style accessible to both students and scholars. The text of each essay presents a story, the main line of development of the ideas, while the footnotes and appendices place the research within a larger scholarly context. The essays overlap, forming a unified analysis of reasoning, yet each essay is designed so that it may be read independently of the others. The topic of this volume is the evaluation of reasoning about cause and effect, reasoning using conditionals, and reasoning that involves explanations. The essay "Reasoning about Cause and Effect" sets out a way to analyze whether there is cause and effect in terms of whether an inference from a claim describing the purported cause to a claim describing the purported effect satisfies specific conditions. Different notions of cause and effect correspond to placing different conditions on what counts as a good causal inference. An application of that method in "The Directedness of Emotions" leads to a clearer understanding of the issue whether every emotion need be directed at something. In the essay "Conditionals" various ways of analyzing reasoning with claims of the form "if . . . then . . ." are surveyed. Some of those uses are meant to be judged as inferences that are not necessarily valid, and conditions are given for when we can consider such inferences to be good. In "Explanations" verbal answers to a question why a claim is true are evaluated in terms of conditions placed on inferences from the explaining claims to the claim being explained. Recognizing that the direction of inference of such an explanation is the reverse of that for an argument with the very same claims is crucial in their evaluation. Explanations in terms of functions and goals are also investigated.

Author : Terrill Pollman
Publisher : Aspen Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1543806848
Total Pages : 423 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Examples & Explanations for Legal Writing written by Terrill Pollman and published by Aspen Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-15 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A favorite classroom prep tool of successful students that is often recommended by professors, the Examples & Explanations (E&E) series provides an alternative perspective to help you understand your casebook and in-class lectures. Each E&E offers hypothetical questions complemented by detailed explanations that allow you to test your knowledge of the topics in your courses and compare your own analysis. Here’s why you need an E&E to help you study throughout the semester: Clear explanations of each class topic, in a conversational, funny style. Features hypotheticals similar to those presented in class, with corresponding analysis so you can use them during the semester to test your understanding, and again at exam time to help you review. It offers coverage that works with ALL the major casebooks, and suits any class on a given topic. The Examples & Explanations series has been ranked the most popular study aid among law students because it is equally as helpful from the first day of class through the final exam.

Author : Lee LeFever
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118417313
Total Pages : 262 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Art of Explanation written by Lee LeFever and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-11-08 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Your guide to becoming an explanation specialist. You've done the hard work. Your product or service works beautifully - but something is missing. People just don't see the big idea - and it's keeping you from being successful. Your idea has an explanation problem. The Art of Explanation is for business people, educators and influencers who want to improve their explanation skills and start solving explanation problems. Author Lee LeFever is the founder of Common Craft, a company known around the world for making complex ideas easy to understand through short animated videos. He is your guide to helping audiences fall in love with your ideas, products or services through better explanations in any medium. You will learn to: Plan: Learn explanation basics, what causes them to fail and how to diagnose explanation problems. Package: Using simple elements, create an explanation strategy that builds confidence and motivates your audience. Present: Produce remarkable explanations with visuals and media. The Art of Explanation is your invitation to become an explanation specialist and see why explanation is now a fundamental skill for professionals.