In your post, you express some reservations about my distinction between two types of explanation. I suspect that there is no canonical answer to the question: is there a single type of explanation? Usually, whether or not we decide to distinguish between two or more subclasses that fall under a general heading will depend on our goals and the level of specificity necessary for achieving them. You prefer to keep things general; restricting yourself to a single conception of explanation; one that applies unequivocally to all replies to why-questions.
However, I believe the question presently at hand demands a greater level of specificity than that offered by your broad account of explanation. Presumably, even you would concede that there are important differences between the two examples of explanation you mention; namely, an explanation of why water boils and an explanation of why a monkey climbs a tree. The explanation of why water boils only appeals to considerations that display the regularity characteristic of the type of laws described by the physical sciences. However, the explanation of why a monkey climbs a tree includes considerations that do not display the same kind of regularity – namely, psychological processes or events. Our folk psychology may be seen (inter alia) as a storehouse of criteria for the attribution of psychological states; it encodes norms governing psychological processes and events. No such storehouse is necessary for the explanation of water boiling; the special function served by our folk psychology has no bearing on such explanations. This, no doubt, constitutes an important difference between the two explanations; one that I believe is salient to the question of agency and our reason-giving practises.
Now, it seems to me that when you say that justification is a “special sort of explanation”, you thereby concede that there is more than one type of explanation. Consequently, there seems to be some tension between your claim that there is only one type of explanation and your claim that justification is a special kind of explanation. You take as your point of departure the claim that explanation is a matter of filling in gaps in the understanding. But this raises the question: gaps in whose understanding? Initially, your answer is gaps in the understanding of the person to whom the explanation is being given (as opposed to the person the explanation is about - i.e., the explanandum). This suggests one possible diagnosis of why it was tempting for you to conclude that the explanations of a monkey’s behaviour and the behaviour of water molecules are, in all salient respects, the same. After all, in both cases, there is a gap being filled in the understanding of the person to whom the explanation is given. Consequently, if the understanding of the person to whom the explanation is being given is the only salient factor vis-a-vis the kind of explanation given, then it would follow (from the fact that the person to whom an explanation is given is always an agent of a single broad type – namely, a rational agent) that there is only one type of explanation.
However, later in your post you seem to reject (albeit implicitly) the assumption that the person to whom an explanation is given is the only relevant factor vis-a-vis the type of explanation given. For example, you claim that in order to be justified, an agent must have the capacity to recognise reasons as such. Moreover, you take justification to be a type of explanation. But notice, if explanation is simply about filling in gaps in the understanding of the person to whom the explanation is being given, then there would be no need for a justified agent (i.e., the person that a particular explanation is about) to recognise reasons as such. Thus, your claim that justification requires that the justified agent (i.e., the explanandum) be able to recognise reasons as such entails that the person to whom a particular explanation is given is not the only salient factor vis-a-vis the type of explanation given. The upshot is that it does not follow from the fact that the explanation of a monkey’s behaviour and the explanation of the behaviour of boiling water both fill in gaps in someone’s understanding (namely, the person to whom the explanation is given), that the respective explanations are of the same kind.
Once we dispense with the offending assumption – namely, the assumption that the person to whom an explanation is given is the only determinant of the nature of an explanation – we are now in a position to recognise that the object of an explanation may also determine the nature of the explanation given. This brings us back to the point with which I began this post; namely, that since the object of explanation in the boiling water example lacks psychological states and the object of explanation in the monkey example possesses psychological states, the types of explanations at play in the two cases are different. I unpack this claim by noting that the first kind of explanation only appeals to considerations that display the regularity indicative of the laws described by the physical sciences, while the second kind of explanation - i.e., folk psychological explanations - appeals to considerations that fail to display the same kind of regularity - namely, psychological processes and events.
However, I believe the question presently at hand demands a greater level of specificity than that offered by your broad account of explanation. Presumably, even you would concede that there are important differences between the two examples of explanation you mention; namely, an explanation of why water boils and an explanation of why a monkey climbs a tree. The explanation of why water boils only appeals to considerations that display the regularity characteristic of the type of laws described by the physical sciences. However, the explanation of why a monkey climbs a tree includes considerations that do not display the same kind of regularity – namely, psychological processes or events. Our folk psychology may be seen (inter alia) as a storehouse of criteria for the attribution of psychological states; it encodes norms governing psychological processes and events. No such storehouse is necessary for the explanation of water boiling; the special function served by our folk psychology has no bearing on such explanations. This, no doubt, constitutes an important difference between the two explanations; one that I believe is salient to the question of agency and our reason-giving practises.
Now, it seems to me that when you say that justification is a “special sort of explanation”, you thereby concede that there is more than one type of explanation. Consequently, there seems to be some tension between your claim that there is only one type of explanation and your claim that justification is a special kind of explanation. You take as your point of departure the claim that explanation is a matter of filling in gaps in the understanding. But this raises the question: gaps in whose understanding? Initially, your answer is gaps in the understanding of the person to whom the explanation is being given (as opposed to the person the explanation is about - i.e., the explanandum). This suggests one possible diagnosis of why it was tempting for you to conclude that the explanations of a monkey’s behaviour and the behaviour of water molecules are, in all salient respects, the same. After all, in both cases, there is a gap being filled in the understanding of the person to whom the explanation is given. Consequently, if the understanding of the person to whom the explanation is being given is the only salient factor vis-a-vis the kind of explanation given, then it would follow (from the fact that the person to whom an explanation is given is always an agent of a single broad type – namely, a rational agent) that there is only one type of explanation.
However, later in your post you seem to reject (albeit implicitly) the assumption that the person to whom an explanation is given is the only relevant factor vis-a-vis the type of explanation given. For example, you claim that in order to be justified, an agent must have the capacity to recognise reasons as such. Moreover, you take justification to be a type of explanation. But notice, if explanation is simply about filling in gaps in the understanding of the person to whom the explanation is being given, then there would be no need for a justified agent (i.e., the person that a particular explanation is about) to recognise reasons as such. Thus, your claim that justification requires that the justified agent (i.e., the explanandum) be able to recognise reasons as such entails that the person to whom a particular explanation is given is not the only salient factor vis-a-vis the type of explanation given. The upshot is that it does not follow from the fact that the explanation of a monkey’s behaviour and the explanation of the behaviour of boiling water both fill in gaps in someone’s understanding (namely, the person to whom the explanation is given), that the respective explanations are of the same kind.
Once we dispense with the offending assumption – namely, the assumption that the person to whom an explanation is given is the only determinant of the nature of an explanation – we are now in a position to recognise that the object of an explanation may also determine the nature of the explanation given. This brings us back to the point with which I began this post; namely, that since the object of explanation in the boiling water example lacks psychological states and the object of explanation in the monkey example possesses psychological states, the types of explanations at play in the two cases are different. I unpack this claim by noting that the first kind of explanation only appeals to considerations that display the regularity indicative of the laws described by the physical sciences, while the second kind of explanation - i.e., folk psychological explanations - appeals to considerations that fail to display the same kind of regularity - namely, psychological processes and events.
1 comment:
Hi, Jonathan Speke Laudly here,
Interesting issue.
Clean split between the mind and the laws of nature? Variation of the mind /body problem.
But it is the mind that forms the picture of physical law----
if we assume that we have no way of forming such a picture outside of mind-- and therefore the physical is psychological, or at least the physical and the psychological are two sides of the same experiential coin.
Objectivity is subjectively determined just as subjectivity
is an objective fact.
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