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169Metaphysical Explanatory AsymmetriesLogique and Analyse 53 (211): 345-365. 2010.The general view is that metaphysical explanation is asymmetric. For instance, if resemblance facts can be explained by facts about their relata, then, by the asymmetry of explanation, these latter facts cannot in turn be explained by the former. The question however is: is there any reason to hold on to the asymmetry? If so, what does it consist in? In the paper we approach these questions by comparing them to analogous questions that have been investigated for scientific explanations. Three ma…Read more
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16On Laws of Politics and How to Establish ThemPS: Political Science and Politics. forthcoming.Alfred Cuzán proposed five “laws of politics” that allegedly govern elections in democracies. Drawing from insights in the general philosophy of science and the philosophy of the social sciences, I argue that—although his empirical evidence is impressive—he failed to develop a convincing argument for calling the five theses “laws.” This article discusses other examples that often are claimed to be “laws of politics” and describes the global picture supporting this analysis.
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38Contrastive causation in genetics and in physicsPhilosophica 90. 2015.Jonathan Schaffer has argued that a contrastive causal ontology is beneficial in juridical contexts: lawyers and judges should treat the causal relation as a quaternary relation, not as binary one. In this paper we investigate to what extent a contrastive causal ontology is beneficial in genetics and in physics. We conclude that it is beneficial in these scientific domains. We also point out that the nature of the benefit differs in the three context that we discuss. Key words: Contrastive causa…Read more
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59This paper investigates the working-method of three important philosophers of explanation: Carl Hempel, Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon. We argue that they do three things: construct an explication in the sense of Carnap, which then is used as a tool to make descriptive and normative claims about the explanatory practice of scientists. We also show that they did well with respect to, but that they failed to give arguments for their descriptive and normative claims. We think it is the responsibi…Read more
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L'oeuvre latine, Tome 1 : Le commentaire de la Genèse, précédé des ProloguesTijdschrift Voor Filosofie 48 (4): 633-633. 1986.
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Conceptual Analysis of Causation and Theoretical Utility in Everyday ContextsLogique Et Analyse 52. 2009.
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18Some problems for Kitcher's unification account of explanationCommunication and Cognition: Monographies 29 441-456. 1996.
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22Scientific Explanation and the Interrogative Model of InquiryPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 51 239-260. 1997.
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29Petri Ylikoski is a Fellow at Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. His main research interests are philosophy of the social sciences and social studies of science. Rebecca Schweder is researcher in theoretical philosophy at Lund University. She works on issues of philosophical logic and science (review)Foundations of Science 10 455-456. 2005.
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13Conceptual tools for causal analysis in the social sciencesIn Federica Russo & Jon Williamson (eds.), Causality and Probability in the Sciences, College Publications. pp. 197--213. 2007.
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42Applications of the adaptive logic for causal discoveryLogique Et Analyse 185 (188): 33-51. 2004.
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42Explanation in the Social Sciences.In Ian Jarvie Jesus Zamora Bonilla (ed.), The Sage Handbook of the Philosophy of Social Sciences., Sage Publications. 2011.
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52The Functions of Intentional Explanations of ActionsBehavior and Philosophy 33 (1). 2005.This paper deals with the "functions of intentional explanations" of actions (IEAs), i.e., explanations that refer to intentional states (beliefs, desires, etc.) of the agent. IEAs can have different formats. We consider these different formats to be instruments that enable the explainer to capture different kinds of information. We pick out two specific formats, i.e. "contrastive" and "descriptive", which will enable us to discuss the functions of IEAs. In many cases the explanation is contrast…Read more
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The practical functions and epistemolgy of causal beliefsCommunication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 31 (4): 297-324. 1998.
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18Micro-explanations of lawsPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 84 (1): 177-186. 2005.After a brief introduction to Kuipers' views on explanations of laws we argue that micro-explanations of laws can have two formats: they work either by aggregation and transformation (as Kuipers suggests) or by means of function ascriptions (Kuipers neglects this possibility). We compare both types from an epistemic point of view (which information is needed to construct the explanation?) and from a means-end perspective (do both types serve the same purposes? are they equally good?).
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Assessing the Explanatory Relevance of Ascriptions of Technical FunctionsIn Dingmar Eck (ed.), The Philosophy of Science and Engineering Design, Springer Verlag. 2016.
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Thinking about laws in political science (and beyond)Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 52 (1). 2021.There are several theses in political science that are usually explicitly called ‘laws’. Other theses are generally thought of as laws, but often without being explicitly labelled as such. Still other claims are well-supported and arguably interesting, while no one would be tempted to call them laws. This situation raises philosophical questions: which theses deserve to be called laws and which not? And how should we decide about this? In this paper we develop and motivate a strategy for thinkin…Read more
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28Distinctively generic explanations of physical factsSynthese 203 (4): 1-30. 2024.We argue that two well-known examples (strawberry distribution and Konigsberg bridges) generally considered genuine cases of distinctively _mathematical_ explanation can also be understood as cases of distinctively _generic_ explanation. The latter answer resemblance questions (e.g., why did neither person A nor B manage to cross all bridges) by appealing to ‘generic task laws’ instead of mathematical necessity (as is done in distinctively mathematical explanations). We submit that distinctively…Read more
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Logic, Philosophy and History of Science in Belgium. Proceedings of the Young Researchers Days 2008 (edited book)Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten. 2009.
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1Varieties of democracy in science policyIn Jeroen van Bouwel (ed.), The Social Sciences and Democracy, Palgrave-macmillan. 2009.
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21In Defence of Rationalist Accounts of the Continental Drift Debate: A Response to PellegriniJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 51 (3): 481-490. 2020.This paper is a reaction to ‘Styles of Thought on the Continental Drift Debate’ by Pablo Pellegrini, published in this journal. The author argues that rationalist accounts of the continental drift debate fail because they overlook important issues. In this discussion we distinguish various forms of rationalism. Then we present a sophisticated rationalist account of the continental drift debate and argue that it is satisfactory because it explains all the central developments in that debate. Fina…Read more