The Causal and Unification Approaches to Explanation Unified—Causally

By Michael Strevens. 2004

176 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: History and Philosophy of Science, Molecular Biology, Philosophy

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Citations in the corpus

Explanation in Human-AI Systems: A Literature Meta-Review, Synopsis of Key Ideas and Publications, and Bibliography for Explainable AI (2019, background): “Key references in philosophy of science are Feigl, et al. (1962), Hospers (1946), Kaplan (1964, Chapter IX), Putnam (1978, Lectures II and IV), and Strevens (2004).”
Finding new facts; thinking new thoughts. (2012, unknown): “…an appeal to plausible causal, mechanistic relations; Bonawitz & Lombrozo, in press; Hempel & Oppenheim, 1948; Keil & Wilson, 2000; Keleman, 1999; Kitcher, 1989; Legare, Gelman, & Wellman, 2010; Lombrozo, 2006, 2007, 2012; Lombrozo & Carey, 2006; Salmon, 1984; Strevens, 2004; Woodward, 2009).”
Moving Beyond Causes: Optimality Models and Scientific Explanation (2015, background): “…to the causal approach, in order to provide an explanation a model must accurately represent the (contextually or metaphysically) salient causes of, or causal mechanisms that gave rise to, the explanandum (Craver 2007; Lewis 1986; Railton 1981; Salmon 1984; Strevens 2004, 2009; Woodward 2003).”
The Explanatory Force of Dynamical and Mathematical Models in Neuroscience: A Mechanistic Perspective* (2011, background): “Strevens (2004) discusses how to combine both causal-mechanical and unificationist approaches to explanation in a way that attempts to solve this problem.”
Forty Years of ‘The Strategy’: Levins on Model Building and Idealization (2007, background): “(Strevens, 2004) A good explanation will discriminate the difference makers from the rest of the causal factors which played a role in generating the explanandum.”
Understanding Why: The cognitive science of explanation (2008, background): “Yet many of the most illuminating explanations are praised for their simplicity and elegance, for the details they leave out (Strevens, 2004; Lombrozo, 2007).”
Preliminary Evolutionary Explanations: A Basic Framework for Conceptual Change and Explanatory Coherence in Evolution (2009, background): “... (a) to show how it is derived in a logical argument that includes a law in the premises (covering law model: Hempel and Oppenheim 1948), (b) to give information about how it was caused (causal account: Salmon 1984), and (c) to connect a diverse set of facts by subsuming them under a set of basic”
Minimal Model Explanations (2014, result): “These accounts of causal explanation have also led to various claims about how idealized models can provide explanations ðElgin and Sober 2002; Strevens 2004, 2009; Potochnik 2007;Weisberg 2007, 2013Þ.”
Qualitative Theory and Chemical Explanation (2004, background): “entire account of explanation on unity and generality (Kitcher 1981; Friedman 1974), logical empiricists (Hempel 1965), and some modern causal theorists (Strevens 2004).”