Greg wrote:

In engaging with the world we are essentially trying to build a good theory, a theory which is the best explanation of the phenomena which confront us. There is nothing metaphysical about saying that a fact is explained; it is just to say that we have fit it into our theory, and our theory accounts for it. Then there's no fact of the matter about our finding facts typically to have explanations, and therefore no need to posit PSR as a best explanation of the phenomena.

I would disagree with the idea that people are somehow trying to build a  "theory"  about the world when they try to formulate explanations. People typically seek explanations without even implicitly wanting to build some sort of formal framework such as a theory that these explanations form. It strikes as somewhat formalistic in trying to reduce explanation to the making of theories, unless of course one is replacing the notiont of explicability with theory, in which case we can replace explicability with theorising and get the same result.


As for the suggestion that there is nothing metaphysical about a fact being explained, this is false for the obvious fact that explicability is a metaphysical notion. It is closely related to intelligibility, which is closely related to being proper, which means that explicability is related to metaphysics.


 

aftermathemat wrote:

Greg wrote:

In engaging with the world we are essentially trying to build a good theory, a theory which is the best explanation of the phenomena which confront us. There is nothing metaphysical about saying that a fact is explained; it is just to say that we have fit it into our theory, and our theory accounts for it. Then there's no fact of the matter about our finding facts typically to have explanations, and therefore no need to posit PSR as a best explanation of the phenomena.

I would disagree with the idea that people are somehow trying to build a  "theory"  about the world when they try to formulate explanations.

Well, first of all, this is in fact the role that Miguel has given IPSR. Second of all, this is clearly the role of explanation in much of science. When people say that the theory of relativity explains such-and-such observed phenomena (say, the perihelion of mercury), they are not giving the fact that relativity is true (say) a role on a par with the role you and I are inclined to give to mercury and the sun. Third of all, there are contexts in ordinary life in which this notion of explanation is used, for instance forensic science, murder mysteries, etc.

Now, the suggestion that all explaining is abductive theory-building explaining is obviously a controversial one; I was suggesting it just to put in view a particular form of PSR skepticism (though I think it's not very uncommon if one looks at the explanation literature in the philosophy of science). One finds perhaps its purest form in Quine's "Two Dogmas," but one finds it elsewhere too.

There's also a weaker form of the thesis which perhaps is sufficient to sustain skepticism of the sort I am imagining. One can think that all explanations are species of abduction (this is, if I recall, the view taken by Alexander Bird) without thinking that all explanation is the assimilating of facts into one big theory (the view one finds in Quine).

aftermathemat wrote:

It strikes as somewhat formalistic in trying to reduce explanation to the making of theories, unless of course one is replacing the notiont of explicability with theory, in which case we can replace explicability with theorising and get the same result.


As for the suggestion that there is nothing metaphysical about a fact being explained, this is false for the obvious fact that explicability is a metaphysical notion. It is closely related to intelligibility, which is closely related to being proper, which means that explicability is related to metaphysics.

I stated explicitly that there is a metaphysical notion of explanation. However, there are also non-metaphysical notions. If I am a scientist trying to choose between two theories, then I might say to myself, "Well, this one explains these facts, and that one explains that..." That isn't the notion of explanation at work in, say, cosmological arguments.

aftermathemat wrote:

Except, if EPSR is true, then a contingent fact could be explicable, but also a brute fact. Since contingent facts aren't necessarily explicable, it follows that they could have been brute. So it makes sense to ask why a certain explicable fact is explicable, since it could have been brute.


To answer  "Because it has an explanation"  would be a non-answer, since explicability is what's being questioned here. As long as the explicable fact could have been a brute fact, the question remains open.  

What does 'explicable' mean here? Is a fact explicable if it has an explanation, or if it could have an explanation, or if it must have an explanation? Or something else?

Once again, I did not propose that the question of why fact f has an explanation is given the explanation "because it has an explanation" or even "because fact g explains fact f", where g does explain f. The proposal was that "f has an explanation" is explained by g. (Presumably we will also have to say that "g explains f" is explained by g.)

But it's more important to ask what explicability is and how it differs, if it differs, from having an explanation. If PSR must be formulated using a notion of explicability rather than of having an explanation, then my original concern would seem to be very much vindicated. For that was not obvious (it was not even on my radar in the first post, and it was not immediately suggested either).

aftermathemat wrote:

To answer by saying  "The closing of the door having an explanation is explained by the gust of wind" / "The contingent fact having an explanation is explained by it's explanation"  is no good because the very explanation is under question here, since the door could have just as easily closed for no reason without the gust of wind, or closed for no reason even under the influence of the gust of wind so that the wind isn't an explanation.

What's the difference between "the door could have just as easily closed for no reason without the gust of wind" and "the door could have just as easily closed without the gust of wind"; or "closed for no reason even under the influence of the gust of wind" and "closed even under the influence of the gust of wind"?

In other words, what does "no reason" amount to?

Last edited by FrenchySkepticalCatholic (2/20/2018 10:17 am)

aftermathemat wrote:

The difference is that every explicable fact with a specific explanation is faced with a fundamental duality; the fact could have been equally explicable and equally brute. It's not just a matter of the same contingent result occuring even with different explanations, it's that the explanation itself is could have been lacking, since it's a serious possibility that it could have been brute. While one explanation may explain a fact and other potential explanations are ruled out because they failed to operate, if a contingent thing has an explanation but it could also have been brute, it turns out that there is no explanation as to why that contingent thing is either explicable or brute, in contrast to other explicable scenarios.

This is where I get a bit lost : what does "the explanation itself could have been lacking" amounts to? I tend to love modal collapse : either things have an explanation, either they don't. For me, brute facts are weird little things.

It's like saying "well, there's this fact here but it has no link to whatever whatsoever". Pardon my French, but what does it implies more ? The only way "brute facts" are a hinderance is when they suck on the Principle of Causality, e.g. when you linearize all causality by setting it as a movie strip in which each instant of the world is frozen (in time? haha).

I have a lot of trouble by seeing "brute facts" as nothing else but "well, it's in the essence/nature of the universe/reality/whatever, though we don't call it that way, we say it's 'brute'".