Reconciling Contrastive and Non-contrastive Explanation

Abstract

Two apparently mutually exclusive ideas about the relation between contrastive and non-contrastive explanations can be found in the literature. According to contrastivists, all explanation is contrastive explanation and the supposed existence of non-contrastive explanations can be revealed to be an illusion. According to non-contrastivists, on the other hand, contrastive explanation can be fully analysed in terms of non-contrastive explanation, and is thus not of fundamental importance. In the current article, I discuss the main arguments in favour of and against each of the two positions. This discussion leads to the idea that contrastive explanations are to be understood as parts of a bigger, more complete noncontrastive explanation; but that all actual explanations explain only a limited set of contrasts. I conclude that, once the relation between contrastive and non-contrastive explanations is understood correctly, there remains no substantial issue to divide contrastivism and non-contrastivism.

How experimental neuroscientists can fix the hard problem of consciousness

“…The explanation of generalizations has received relatively less attention by fans of interventionism. What has been done has mostly focused on mathematical and fundamental physical laws ( Woodward 2003 ; Lange 2009 ; Gijsbers 2011 , 2017 ), though see Rosenberg (2012) for an extension to economics.…”

Contrastivism and non‐contrastivism in scientific explanation

“…Reading “why p ” as “why p rather than p ¬” seems to be an ad hoc move. As Victor Gijsbers (, p. 1222) points out, it is “only undertaken to save the contrastive view but cannot be otherwise justified.” What is worse, reading “why p ” as “why p rather than p ¬” leads to a rejection of contrastivism, as Strevens argues.…”

“…Gijsbers () has recently developed a compatibilist thesis by arguing that a contrastive explanation is in fact a partial explanation of a non‐contrastive explanandum with respect to a particular and limited explanatory space, while a non‐constrastive explanation is a full explanation of all the possible constrastive explananda. Therefore, the tension between contrastivism and non‐contrastivism can be reconciled by arguing that contrastiveness and non‐contrastiveness only reflect the different aspects of scientific explanation.…”

“…On the one hand, if a non‐contrastive explanation is a full explanation of all the possible contrastive explananda, it seems that we can never have a non‐contrastive explanation. As Gijsbers (, p. 1224) himself recognises, “no actually given explanation is ever the explanation of a non‐contrastive explanandum.” If so, the concept of contrastive explanation seems to be empty. On the other hand, if a contrastive explanation is a partial explanation of a non‐contrastive explanandum with respect to a particular and limited explanatory space, we do not have any contrastive explanation either.…”

“…All contrastive explanations are always reducible to non‐contrastive explanations (non‐contrastivism) . In addition, a compatibilist view has been developed recently (e.g., Gijsbers, ). It is argued that the debate between contrastivism and non‐contrastivism is merely a linguistic dispute rather than a genuine disagreement on the nature of scientific explanation.…”