Why P rather than Q? The curiosities of fact and foil

Barnes, Eric Christian

doi:10.1007/bf00989743

Cited by 23 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…14 As illustrated in the previous section, it is not always the case in contrastive explanation that topic and contrasts are incompatible (both Smith and Jones might have contracted paresis), as here; it is generally the case that topic and contrast-negations have a shared or similar history as here. See Barnes (1994).…”

Section: Contrastive Explanationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Scalar implicature and contrastive explanation

Chien

2007

Synthese

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I argue for a subsumption of any version of Grice's first quantity maxim posited to underlie scalar implicature, by developing the idea of implicature recovery as a kind of explanatory inference, as e.g. in science. I take the applicable model to be contrastive explanation, while following van Fraassen's analysis of explanation as an answer to a why-question. A scalar implicature is embedded in such an answer, one that meets two probabilistic constraints: the probability of the answer, and 'favoring'. I argue that besides having application at large, outside of linguistic interpretation, these constraints largely account not only for implicatures based on strength order, logical and otherwise, but also for unordered cases. I thus suggest that Grice's maxim and its descendants are expressions of general explanatory constraints, as they happen to be manifested in this particular explanatory task. I conclude by briefly discussing how I accordingly view Grice's system outside of scalar implicature.

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Section: Contrastive Explanationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Scalar implicature and contrastive explanation

Chien

2007

Synthese

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“…More recent proponents of contrastivism are Woodward (2003), Ylikoski (2007), Botterill (2010) (as far as explanations-why are concerned) and Khalifa (2010). In their important analyses of the nature of explanatory contrasts, Lipton (1991b) and Barnes (1994) show themselves to be at least sympathetic to contrastivism, with Lipton saying that he is agnostic about the existence of noncontrastive explananda and Barnes suggesting that apparently non-contrastive explanations are at least ''often'' contrastive. Furthermore, the idea that explananda are contrastive has been applied outside the philosophy of science proper, where it has been used to elucidate problems in the philosophy of causation (Schaffer 2005;Northcott 2008; but see Steglich-Petersen 2012 for criticism), the philosophy of language (Chien 2008), epistemology (Rieber 1998;Sinnott-Armstrong 2008), economics (Marchionni 2006;Oinas and Marchionni 2010), management science (Tsang and Florian 2011), the history of ethnography (Risjord 2000), and legal theory (Schaffer 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconciling Contrastive and Non-contrastive Explanation

Gijsbers

2017

Erkenn

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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.

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“…1993 (originally published in 1984); Lewis 1986;Sober 1994Sober (originally published in 1986; Temple 1988;Lipton 1990Lipton , 1991Lipton , 1993Barnes 1994;Hitchcock 1996Hitchcock , 1999Carroll 1997Carroll , 1999Risjord 2000.) I will follow their lead and try to develop the contrastive idea a little bit further.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Idea of Contrastive Explanandum

Ylikoski¹

2017

Preprint

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In this paper, I will discuss the idea of contrastive explanandum. I will restrict my discussion to singular causal explanation, but the basic ideas and the arguments have a broader application. They are relevant also to other kinds of explanations. In the first section I will first present the intuitive idea of contrastive questions, and then elaborate it by discussing typical criteria for the choice of a contrast. I also suggest a novel way to see the difference between scientific and everyday explanatory questions. In the second section I will discuss the major criticisms presented against contrastive theories of explanation in order to further clarify my position. I argue that all explananda can be analyzed as contrastive and that this is a fruitful approach in understanding explanatory questions. I also argue that the contrastive thesis should be understood as a claim about what an explanation can explain, not as a thesis about what the explainee has in her mind. Finally, I defend the thesis that a contrastive explanandum can be reduced to a non-contrastive explanandum against the arguments presented by Dennis Temple and John W. Carroll. The contrastive explanandumA famous joke about the bank robber Willie Sutton introduces the basic idea of contrastive explanation. When Willie was in prison, a prison priest asked him why he robbed banks.Willie answered, "Well, that's where the money is." The joke is based on a confusion, for Willie was not answering the question the priest was asking. The priest had in his mind the question: "why do you rob banks, instead of leading an honest life?", whereas Willie answered the question: "why do you rob banks, rather than gas stations or grocery stores?" This is the basic insight of the contrastive approach. We do not explain simply 'Why f?' rather, our explanations are answers to the contrastive question 'Why f rather than c?'. (Garfinkel 1981: 21-22.) Instead of explaining plain facts, we are explaining contrastive facts.Several philosophers of explanation have used the same basic idea. (For example, Hart & Honoré 1959; Hansson 1975; van Fraassen 1980;Garfinkel 1981;Hesslow 1983; Woodward Published in 2007 2 1993 (originally published in 1984); Lewis 1986;Sober 1994 Sober (originally published in 1986Temple 1988; Lipton 1990Lipton , 1991Lipton , 1993Barnes 1994;Hitchcock 1996Hitchcock , 1999Carroll 1997Carroll , 1999Risjord 2000.) I will follow their lead and try to develop the contrastive idea a little bit further.In the following discussion I am not committed to any specific theory about explanationseeking questions. (See van Fraassen 1980; Tuomela 1980;Sintonen 1984; Koura 1988;Hintikka & Halonen 1995.) Some advocates of the contrastive approach subscribe to the thesis that all explanatory questions are always why-questions (van Fraassen 1980). The account presented here does not include any such commitment. The thesis that explanations are answers to questions should be kept separate from the thesis that all explanation-seeking questions are why-questions. A...

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Why P rather than Q? The curiosities of fact and foil

Cited by 23 publications

References 10 publications

Scalar implicature and contrastive explanation

Scalar implicature and contrastive explanation

Reconciling Contrastive and Non-contrastive Explanation

The Idea of Contrastive Explanandum

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