Opis: Explanatory Pluralism - C. Mantzavinos

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. Advance praise: 'Chrysostomos Mantzavinos raises fundamental questions about what a philosophical theory of explanation should do, and he offers a highly original and illuminating approach to the tasks he singles out as important. This book is required reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of science.' Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York Advance praise: 'What distinguishes the different scientific disciplines and the evolving developments within any discipline? Mantzavinos says that each discipline plays its own explanatory set of games, each answering to a set of guiding values; and that a game may change in any domain as it proves better answerable to local values or as those values themselves shift. This engaging theory of explanation is philosophically innovative and empirically informed, with discussion ranging widely over the natural, psychological and social sciences.' Philip Pettit, L. S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton University, New Jersey and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University Advance praise: 'This is a very lively and engaging defense of pluralism about explanation. Mantzavinos argues forcefully that no single model of explanation, of the sort traditionally sought by philosophers of science, adequately captures all the different varieties of explanatory activities that go on in science and in other areas of human life. He proposes instead that we understand explanation in terms of a strikingly new notion - that of an explanatory game. Philosophers and non-philosophers alike will find much of interest in this original and stimulating book.' James F. Woodward, Distinguished Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh1. Introduction; 2. The wrong question: what is an explanation?; 3. A brief outlook on the social sciences; 4. Towards explanatory pluralism; 5. The explanatory enterprise; 6. The rules of the explanatory game; 7. The plurality of explanatory games; 8. Explanatory activity as problem solving activity; 9. Explanatory rules as shared rules; 10. Normative appraisal: a procedural conception; 11. Explanatory methodology as technology; 12. Epilogue.

Szczegóły: Explanatory Pluralism - C. Mantzavinos

Tytuł: Explanatory Pluralism
Autor: C. Mantzavinos
Wydawnictwo: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107128514
Rok wydania: 2016
Ilość stron: 234
Oprawa: Twarda
Waga: 0.48 kg

Recenzje: Explanatory Pluralism - C. Mantzavinos