Paul A. Roth

What ought to count as an explanation? Such normative questions—what “ought to be” the case?—typically mark the domain that those with a type of philosophical aspiration call their own. Debates in the philosophy of history have for too long been marred by bad advice from just such aspirants. The recurrent suggestion has been that historians have a particular need for a theory of explanation since they seem to have none of their own. But neither the study of the natural sciences nor the study of narrative compels or even makes plausible the view that it will be possible to adduce the norms of explanation, either in history or elsewhere, in advance of identifying theories that explain. I readily concede to Stueber, Carr, and FORLAND the use of a certain vocabulary when speaking of others. But it is one thing to point to a pervasive habit of explaining behavior in certain terms. It is quite another to document that these explanations have any value as explanations.What apart from habit or philosophical dogma establishes any of their proposals as explanatory? Explanation by invoking the myth of the shared should be replaced by explanations that have empirical content.

The very idea of narrative explanation invites two objections: a methodological objection, stating that narrative structure is too far from the form of a scientific explanation to count as an explanation, and a metaphysical objection, stating that narrative structure situates historical practice too close to the writing of fiction. Both of these objections, however, are illfounded. The methodological objection and the dispute regarding the status of historical explanation can be disposed of by revealing their motivating presupposition: the plausibility of an exclusivist explication of explanation which appeals either to the unity-of-method thesis or some implicit notion of analytic equivalence, both problematic philosophical doctrines. The metaphysical objection fails with the rejection of the idea, in Mink's phrase, of an "untold story." The argument against history as an "untold story" develops from Danto's image of an Ideal Chronicler recording ideal events. A consequence of rejecting this view is that it no longer makes sense to speak of historical narratives as true or false. However, this failure engenders no special problem for assessing the objectivity or explanatory utility of narratives qua explanations

A number of authors have recently argued that the mathematical insights of "chaos theory" offer a promising formal model or significant analogy for understanding at least some historical events. We examine a representative claim of each kind regarding the application of chaos theory to problems of historical explanation. We identify two lines of argument. One we term the Causal Thesis, which states that chaos theory may be used to plausibly model, and so explain, historical events. The other we term the Convergence Thesis, which holds that, once the analogy between history and chaos theory is properly appreciated, any temptation to divide history from the rest of science should be greatly lessened. We argue that the proffered analogy between chaos theory and history falls apart upon closer analysis. The promised benefits of chaos theory vis-à-vis history are either fantastic or, at best, an extremely loose heuristic which, while retaining nothing of the considerable intrinsic interest of nonlinear dynamics, easily seduces the unwary into taking at face value terms and concepts that have a specifically precise meaning only within the confines of mathematical theory

In this paper, I examine how a manifest disagreement between Richard Rorty and Alasdair MacIntyre concerning the history of philosophy is but one of a series of deep and interrelated disagreements concerning, in addition, the history of science, the good life for human beings, and, ultimately, the character of and prospects for humankind as well. I shall argue that at the heart of this series of disagreements rests a dispute with regard to the nature of rationality. And this disagreement concerning the norms of rationality, despite its theoretical and practical importance, is one which is, or so I argue, irresolvable. Moreover, the series of disagreements which I examine in the context of the debate between Rorty and MacIntyre is not peculiar or idiosyncratic to them. Their dispute reflects presumptions common to contemporary analytical philosophy. And while analytical philosophers have not made discussions of human nature one of their characteristic concerns, I indicate that such concerns do play a central role in the controversy which I examine. Differences of opinion concerning the political and social nature of human beings are reflected up and down the philosophical line. My argument is in no way concerned with issues of psychological priority or causality (e.g. whether having certain views disposes one psychologically to accepting other views). What I establish are the logical relations, and the points of philosophical contention, among certain epistemo logical and political theses. In Part I, I rehearse Rorty's epistemological views and examine how these views are connected to his views on morality and human nature. In Part II, I begin with MacIntyre's position concerning the virtues and modern moral philosophy and then reconstruct, ex pede Herculem, his views on rationality. Part III examines the prospects of reconciling the perspectives discussed in the first two sections

The article argues, "contra" berger, that quine's advocacy alleged of classical logic is not based on any alleged "fit" between classical logic and some empirical account of language learning. roth begins by examining berger's claim that quine has changed his position on the acceptability of alternative logics. in berger's account, quine now accepts alternative logics because he could not defend his commitment to classical logic alone based on empirical evidence (e.g., verdict tables). roth argues that berger is mistaken both in thinking that quine has changed his position and in berger's belief that evidence regarding language learning is the basis of quine's view on logic. the actual basis, roth argues, is pragmatic

Roth contends that the controversy in the philosophy of the social sciences over the canons of rationality is the product of the mistaken belief in methodological exclusivism. Drawing on work in contemporary epistemology by W.V.O. Quine, Richard Rorty and Paul Feyerabend, he argues that no single theory of human behavior has methodological priority. He demonstrates how rejecting the notion of universal norms of social inquiry neither reduces epistemology to empirical psychology nor entails epistemological nihilism. He also traces the false presupposition that modeling the social science on the natural sciences is the best method for inquiring into human affairs, examines and rejects specific formulations of methodological exclusivism; and advocates methodological pluralism, which incorporates both a type of methodological anarchism and a commitment to Quinean-style holism and empiricism. ISBN 0-8014-1941-7: $26.95.

This paper surveys the parallel fates of the notion of the empirical in philosophy of science in the 20th century and the notion of experience as evidence in one important line of debate in historiography/philosophy of history. The focus concerns the presumably crucial role some notion of the empirical plays in the assessment of knowledge claims. The significance of 'the empirical' disappears on the assumption that theories either determine what counts as experience or explain away any apparently discordant evidence. One consequence of this has been the suggestion that the analysis of meaning somehow replaces or supplants that played by evidence qua fact. This dispute impacts in parallel ways the turf wars between philosophers of science and practitioners of science studies as well as disputes in historiography between literary theorists and those not so kindly disposed. The parallels suggest why historiographic debate has stalled for three decades.

What makes for a good explanation of a person’s actions? Their reasons, or soa natural reply goes. But how do reasons function as part of explanations, that is, within an account of the causes of action? Here philosophers divide concerning the logical relation in which reasons stand to actions. For, tradition holds, reasons evaluatively characterized must be causally inert, inasmuch as the normative features cannot be found in any account of the empirical/descriptive. To countenance reasons as causes thus seems to imply some degree of normative involvement in causal explanation. Mark Risjord opts for full normative involvement while David Henderson insistently denies a role to norms in explanation. Stueber occupies an intermediate position here. I question just whether there exists some "special" problem regarding norms, at least in the form which, I take it, all three of the authors I discuss assume there to be one. Key Words: reasons • causes • norms • rules • explanation.

Alvin Goldman's recent collection (Goldman, 1992) includes many of the important and seminal contributions made by him over the last three decades to epistemology, philosophy of mind, and analytic metaphysics. Goldman is an acknowledged leader in efforts to put material from cognitive and social science to good philosophical use. This is the “liaison” which Goldman takes his own work to exemplify and advance. Yet the essays contained in Liaisons chart an important evolution in Goldman's own views about the relation between philosophy and empirical inquiry. Goldman raises, if only unwittingly, the question of what philosophy per se contributes to the encounter. The way in which Goldman's work problematizes the claim that philosophy forms a working liaison with the cognitive and social sciences is revealed by examining two sets of distinctions prominent in Goldman's analyses in this volume. I trace how each pair of terms—philosophy versus science, individual versus social—is used by Goldman and suggest that it is less clear than one would like how these key notions are or could be distinguished from one another. Doubts about these distinctions, at least as Goldman employs them, suggest more general concerns regarding Goldman's style of naturalism and the status of philosophy as a source of knowledge. Liaisons: philosophy meets the cognitive and social sciences , A. Goldman. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.

This article defends methodological and theoretical pluralism in the social sciences. While pluralistic, such a philosophy of social science is both pragmatic and normative. Only by facing the problems of such pluralism, including how to resolve the potential conflicts between various methods and theories, is it possible to discover appropriate criteria of adequacy for social scientific explanations and interpretations. So conceived, the social sciences do not give us fixed and universal features of the social world, but rather contribute to the task of improving upon our practical knowledge of on-going social life. After arguing for such a thorough-going pluralism based on the indeterminacy of social action, I defend it from the post-modern and hermeneutic objections by suggesting the possibility of an epistemology of interpretive social science as a form of practical knowledge