Explanatory Unification

Abstract

The official model of explanation proposed by the logical empiricists, the covering law model, is subject to familiar objections. The goal of the present paper is to explore an unofficial view of explanation which logical empiricists have sometimes suggested, the view of explanation as unification. I try to show that this view can be developed so as to provide insight into major episodes in the history of science, and that it can overcome some of the most serious difficulties besetting the covering law model.

Getting to Darwin: Obstacles to Accepting Evolution by Natural Selection

“…Thagard (1988Thagard ( , 1992 argued that Darwin's theory has been and should be accepted because of its explanatory coherence, which takes into account how it compares with alternative theories such as creationism according to the range of facts explained, simplicity, and analogies such as Darwin's comparison of natural selection tof artificial breeding. This account fits very well with Darwin's own argument and with widespread inferential practice (Kitcher 1981).…”

Laws and the Completeness of the Fundamental

“…Or one might think that such generalizations admit of two independent explanations, one given partly 19 Thanks to Zee Perry for discussion on this point. 20 Kitcher (1981) develops an influential unificationist account of explanation. 21 Rosen (2010, 118-21) If Crimson is not a universal generalization, then what is its logical form?…”

Multi-Level Selection and the Explanatory Value of Mathematical Decompositions

“…Next consider Kitcher's ([1981]; [1989]) uni cationist approach to explanation. Kitcher provides a criterion for what one might call explanatory promise, the ability of a candidate explanation to deepen one's understanding of what one already knows.…”