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Explanatory Pluralism
Views: 159
- Title: Explanatory Pluralism
- Author(s): Neil Campbell
- Publisher: Common Ground Research Networks
- Collection: Common Ground Research Networks
- Series: New Directions in the Humanities
- Journal Title: The International Journal of the Humanities: Annual Review
- Keywords: Action, Explanation, Reason, Cause
- Volume: 5
- Issue: 3
- Date: October 01, 2007
- ISSN: 1447-9508 (Print)
- ISSN: 1447-9559 (Online)
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.18848/1447-9508/CGP/v05i03/58124
- Citation: Campbell, Neil. 2007. "Explanatory Pluralism." The International Journal of the Humanities: Annual Review 5 (3): 25-30. doi:10.18848/1447-9508/CGP/v05i03/58124.
- Extent: 6 pages
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Copyright © 2007, Common Ground Research Networks, All Rights Reserved
Abstract
In this paper I explore an avenue of support for what we might call explanatory pluralism—the view that reason-giving is not a species of causal explanation. I argue that explaining by appealing to an agent's reasons satisfy our epistemic needs and create understanding in a quite different way than causal explanations. Causal explanations explain by subsuming events under true causal generalizations, whereas reasons explain by rendering an agent's behaviour rational.
