Explanation Beyond Causation (October 23-24, 2014)
Idea and Motivation
The presently received view regarding the question “what is a scientific explanation?” is the causal model of explanation. According to this model, the sciences explain by providing information about causes and causal mechanisms. However, in the recent literature, an increasing number of philosophers argue that the explanatory practices in the sciences are considerably richer than the causal model suggests. These philosophers argue that there are non-causal explanations that cannot be accommodated by the causal model. Case studies of non-causal explanations come in a surprisingly diverse variety: for instance, the non-causal character of scientific explanations is based on the explanatory use of non-causal laws, purely mathematical facts, symmetry principles, inter-theoretic relations, renormalization group methods, and so forth. However, if there are non-causal ways of explaining, then the causal model cannot be the whole story about scientific explanation. The goal of the conference is to shed light on, by and large, unexplored philosophical terrain: that is, to develop a philosophical account of various aspects of non-causal explanations in the sciences.
Program
23 October
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 09:15 - 09:30 | Welcome. |
| 09:30 - 10:45 | Margaret Morrison: Explanation in Complex Systems. Probability and Renormalization Group Methods |
| 10:45 - 11:00 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00 - 11:45 | Lina Jansson: Nomological Explanation Without Causation |
| 11:45 - 12:30 | Brad Weslake: Selection, Drift, and Non-Causal Explanation |
| 12:30 - 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 - 14:45 | Michael Strevens: A Unified Framework For Causal and Non-causal Explanations |
| 14:45 - 15:30 | Juha Saatsi: Worthwhile Distinctions: Kinematic, Dynamic and Non-causal explanations |
| 15:30 - 15:45 | Coffee Break |
| 15:45 - 16:30 | Alexander Reutlinger: What’s Explanatory About Non-causal Explanations? |
| 16:30 - 17:15 | Mathias Frisch: Are All Explanations Causal? |
| 17:15 - 17:45 | Coffee Break |
| 17:45 - 19:00 | Brad Skow: Explanations, Why Questions, Reasons, and Causes |
| 19:00 | Dinner |
24 October
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 09:00 - 10:15 | Jan Sprenger: Explaining the Success of Science: The Probabilistic No Miracles Argument |
| 10:30 - 11:00 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00 - 11:45 | Andrew Wayne: Idealization and Explanation: A Deductivist Approach |
| 11:45 - 12:00 | Coffee Break |
| 12:00 - 12:45 | Lilia Gurova: How Personality Traits Explain: The Value Of Non-causal Category-Based Explanations |
| 12:45 - 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 - 14:45 | Nora Berenstein: Mathematical Structure, Physical Modality, and Non-causal Explanation |
| 14:45 - 15:30 | Lorenzo Casini and Johannes Korbmacher: Grounding Explanation and Scientific Reasoning |
| 15:30 - 15:45 | Coffee Break |
| 15:45 - 17:00 | Tim Maudlin: Statistical Explanation and Typicality |
Acknowledgement
This conference is supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung.