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18Some problems for Kitcher's unification account of explanationCommunication and Cognition: Monographies 29 441-456. 1996.
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1Scientific 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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3Applications 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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17The 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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2Micro-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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22Distinctively 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
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104Rationality and irrationality in the history of continental drift: Was the hypothesis of continental drift worthy of pursuit?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (1): 147-159. 2012.
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10The Practical Value of Spurious Correlations: Selective versus Manipulative PolicyAnalysis 68 (4). 2008.In the past 25 years, many philosophers have endorsed the view that the practical value of causal knowledge lies in the fact that manipulation of causes is a good way to bring about a desired change in the effect. This view is intuitively very plausible. For instance, we can predict a storm on the basis of a barometer reading, but we cannot avoid the storm by manipulating the state of the barometer (barometer status and storm are effects of a common cause, viz. atmospheric conditions). In Sectio…Read more
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2Causality and Explanation in the Sciences: the Rest of the Best (review)Erkenntnis 78 (2): 147-151. 2013.
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57Six Theses on Mechanisms and Mechanistic ScienceJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 53 (2): 143-161. 2022.In this paper we identify six theses that constitute core results of philosophical investigation into the nature of mechanisms, and of the role that the search for and identification of mechanisms play in the sciences. These theses represent the fruits of the body of research that is now often called New Mechanism. We concisely present the main arguments for these theses. In the literature, these arguments are scattered and often implicit. Our analysis can guide future research in many ways: it …Read more
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26The Concept of Causation in Newton's Mechanical and Optical WorkLogic and Logical Philosophy 16 (4): 265-288. 2007.In this essay the authors explore the nature of efficient causal explanation in Newton’s "Principia and The Opticks". It is argued that: (1) In the dynamical explanations of the Principia, Newton treats the phenomena under study as cases of Hall’s second kind of atypical causation. The underlying concept of causation is therefore a purely interventionist one. (2) In the descriptions of his optical experiments, Newton treats the phenomena under study as cases of Hall’s typical causation. The unde…Read more
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13Philosophy of the department of philosophy and moral sciences of the university of ghentTijdschrift Voor Filosofie 78 (3): 479-488. 2016.
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6The Living Apart Together Relationship of Causation and Explanation: A Comment on Jean LachapellePhilosophy of the Social Sciences 32 (4): 560-569. 2002.
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40Rethinking Evidence-Based ManagementPhilosophy of Management 23 (1): 59-84. 2024.Evidence-based management (EBMgt) is a relatively recent approach to management, developed by Denise Rousseau in a series of articles and in a book that she co-authored with Eric Barends (Barends & Rousseau 2018). It is based on the idea that good-quality management decisions require both critical thinking and use of the best available evidence. In this paper we want to contribute to the scholarship on evidence-based management by showing how its central concept – evidence – can and should be de…Read more