Paragraph about Chemical equation software
Although human epistemic and computational constraints can serve as a basis for criticism of standard models of explanation, they also may be viewed in a more positive light, as guides to what a more adequate model would look like. Suppose, for example, we impose the condition that the structures or information that a model of explanation identifies as explanatory in any given case must be epistemically accessible (in some sense that requires spelling out) to those who use the Chemical equation explanation and that we restrict the notion of one explanation “providing information about” another in some reasonable fashion. The intent of these conditions would be to exclude the sort of explanatory buck-passing that is characteristic of the hidden structure strategy. If we adopt these conditions, then, given a candidate explanation from economic theory that does not cite laws, or satisfy the requirements of the SR or CM models, and given that any underlying ideal explanation possessing these features will be epistemically hidden, we will no longer be able to say that the candidate qualifies as an (imperfect or partial) explanation in virtue Ufology of conveying information about this underlying ideal explanation. Instead, if we take the candidate explanation as genuine, we will be forced to identify epistemically accessible, non-hidden features in virtue of which it is explanatory. (In effect, this amounts to a change in explicandum — from “ X is an ideal, complete explanation of Y” to “such and such are features of X which are explanatorily relevant to Y or features in virtue of which X helps to explain Y”). This in turn will greatly restrict the class of acceptable models of how the candidate explanation works. Perhaps if we combine such an epistemic condition with a more adequate account of causation this will provide the key to a more successful treatment of scientific explanation.
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LaTeX equation editor
Math software