Hi guys.  Back a little early from the London job, but have a lot to do for the next trip in a couple of weeks, so can’t really start a long debate.  But maybe I can share some thoughts with you on a discursive basis – I’m not arguing anything as such, just looking at a topic.   While I was away, I thought a bit about Reasoned’s statement that “materialism can’t account for logic” – and the way the discussion went. 

Now, don’t want to go back into that topic again, because I think the discussion was very flawed – RF asking questions from a point of view orthogonal to the line of replies he was getting.    Which led me to the question in the title.

I can ‘account for’, say, events in a number ways.  In normal discourse, we happily accept something as being ‘accounted for’ if we can refer it back to some existing set of beliefs  e.g. why did Fred catch pneumonia and Jack didn’t? Because Fred spent the night out on the moor in sub-zero temperatures when Jack was tucked up in bed.  Note also that many of our ways of  accounting for something have a contrastive element – why his rather than that?  The choice of which contrast to use reveals the particular interests of the enquirer (O God, why did I have to lose this week’s lottery ticket rather than last week’s?), and the sort of account that she will accept as a ‘proper’ explanation.

In general, too, our accounts are susceptible to the why-regress – as any child of five plus (and any parent or uncle of such a child!) can tell you.  If you have some intellectual honesty, you will end the regress with a ‘we just don’t know why that one – it just is’.  Or maybe ask why we need to regress further….   The reason underlying the why-regress is that we seem to expect accounts to describe causal chains.  But that doesn’t exhaust the possibilities of ways of explaining things – a mathematical proof explains, but there is no causality involved;  many ‘religious’ or political explanations are extended metaphors re-stating a structural relationship;  a physical explanation of the structure of an atom or the chemical explanation of a particular molecule do not give causal histories.  The point about these examples is that they concern ‘idealised’ or abstract or structural entities – there is no need for a causal explanation.  To demand one is to misrepresent the nature of the thing to be accounted for – unless, of course, your mindset is totally hung up on the need for causal explanations.

A further level of analysis takes us into ontology – the study of what kinds of ‘things’ exist (and what we mean by exist – it is arguable that the ‘existence’ of stars, elephants, viruses, rocks, sub-atomic particles, etc exist in a different way – the word has a different meaning – when compared to numbers, Harry Potter, logic, possible worlds, the laws of Economics, etc.).  At this level the idea of a causal explanation for their existence is nonsense, of course: a philosophical explanation may be available, but since we can at that level doubt (in a non-Caertesian way) even the existence of matter or substance or entities, it is maybe a little sterile?

Just as the way demands for explanation explicitly or implicitly indicate the interests of the questioner, so the definition of what counts as an explanation will vary with the questioner’s and answerer’s background, interests and assumptions.   (Ask a chess grandmaster to explain why he made a particular move and unless you are a good player, you will not feel that the move has been accounted for).   So, to try to reduce that variation we find in our discussions here, and to get some common criteria for evaluating our contributions to ‘explanations’ or ‘accounting for things’, here’s something I found in the IAP1 archive….


Any further contributions to the list?

Note that the coherence criterion ‘accounts for’ the idea of people ‘talking past’ one another – in that both sides will claim the other to be incoherent, since they are judging from different baselines.  But it also can help find a compromise in that the sum of human knowledge in the (western) public domain can be taken as a ‘controlled environment’.   Naturally this doesn’t help if a protagonist is so commited to one point of view that she denies such knowledge.

(BTW Carruthers isn't the authority on explanation - try Peter Lipton if you want to get into the subject deeply; sadly I haven't yet had time)

Anyhooo, that’s a few thoughts for starters.  Anybody else got any views on what it is to ‘account for’ things?

bumped

I like the way atheists reject other people's faith based belief system while simultaneously promoting theirs.

Hi guys.  Back a little early from the London job, but have a lot to do for the next trip in a couple of weeks, so can’t really start a long debate.  But maybe I can share some thoughts with you on a discursive basis – I’m not arguing anything as such, just looking at a topic.   While I was away, I thought a bit about Reasoned’s statement that “materialism can’t account for logic” – and the way the discussion went. 

Now, don’t want to go back into that topic again, because I think the discussion was very flawed – RF asking questions from a point of view orthogonal to the line of replies he was getting.    Which led me to the question in the title.

I can ‘account for’, say, events in a number ways.  In normal discourse, we happily accept something as being ‘accounted for’ if we can refer it back to some existing set of beliefs  e.g. why did Fred catch pneumonia and Jack didn’t? Because Fred spent the night out on the moor in sub-zero temperatures when Jack was tucked up in bed.  Note also that many of our ways of  accounting for something have a contrastive element – why his rather than that?  The choice of which contrast to use reveals the particular interests of the enquirer (O God, why did I have to lose this week’s lottery ticket rather than last week’s?), and the sort of account that she will accept as a ‘proper’ explanation.

In general, too, our accounts are susceptible to the why-regress – as any child of five plus (and any parent or uncle of such a child!) can tell you.  If you have some intellectual honesty, you will end the regress with a ‘we just don’t know why that one – it just is’.  Or maybe ask why we need to regress further….   The reason underlying the why-regress is that we seem to expect accounts to describe causal chains.  But that doesn’t exhaust the possibilities of ways of explaining things – a mathematical proof explains, but there is no causality involved;  many ‘religious’ or political explanations are extended metaphors re-stating a structural relationship;  a physical explanation of the structure of an atom or the chemical explanation of a particular molecule do not give causal histories.  The point about these examples is that they concern ‘idealised’ or abstract or structural entities – there is no need for a causal explanation.  To demand one is to misrepresent the nature of the thing to be accounted for – unless, of course, your mindset is totally hung up on the need for causal explanations.

A further level of analysis takes us into ontology – the study of what kinds of ‘things’ exist (and what we mean by exist – it is arguable that the ‘existence’ of stars, elephants, viruses, rocks, sub-atomic particles, etc exist in a different way – the word has a different meaning – when compared to numbers, Harry Potter, logic, possible worlds, the laws of Economics, etc.).  At this level the idea of a causal explanation for their existence is nonsense, of course: a philosophical explanation may be available, but since we can at that level doubt (in a non-Caertesian way) even the existence of matter or substance or entities, it is maybe a little sterile?

Just as the way demands for explanation explicitly or implicitly indicate the interests of the questioner, so the definition of what counts as an explanation will vary with the questioner’s and answerer’s background, interests and assumptions.   (Ask a chess grandmaster to explain why he made a particular move and unless you are a good player, you will not feel that the move has been accounted for).   So, to try to reduce that variation we find in our discussions here, and to get some common criteria for evaluating our contributions to ‘explanations’ or ‘accounting for things’, here’s something I found in the IAP1 archive….


Any further contributions to the list?

Note that the coherence criterion ‘accounts for’ the idea of people ‘talking past’ one another – in that both sides will claim the other to be incoherent, since they are judging from different baselines.  But it also can help find a compromise in that the sum of human knowledge in the (western) public domain can be taken as a ‘controlled environment’.   Naturally this doesn’t help if a protagonist is so commited to one point of view that she denies such knowledge.

(BTW Carruthers isn't the authority on explanation - try Peter Lipton if you want to get into the subject deeply; sadly I haven't yet had time)

Anyhooo, that’s a few thoughts for starters.  Anybody else got any views on what it is to ‘account for’ things?

Hi guys.  Back a little early from the London job, but have a lot to do for the next trip in a couple of weeks, so can’t really start a long debate.  But maybe I can share some thoughts with you on a discursive basis – I’m not arguing anything as such, just looking at a topic.   While I was away, I thought a bit about Reasoned’s statement that “materialism can’t account for logic” – and the way the discussion went. 

Now, don’t want to go back into that topic again, because I think the discussion was very flawed – RF asking questions from a point of view orthogonal to the line of replies he was getting.    Which led me to the question in the title.

I can ‘account for’, say, events in a number ways.  In normal discourse, we happily accept something as being ‘accounted for’ if we can refer it back to some existing set of beliefs  e.g. why did Fred catch pneumonia and Jack didn’t? Because Fred spent the night out on the moor in sub-zero temperatures when Jack was tucked up in bed.  Note also that many of our ways of  accounting for something have a contrastive element – why his rather than that?  The choice of which contrast to use reveals the particular interests of the enquirer (O God, why did I have to lose this week’s lottery ticket rather than last week’s?), and the sort of account that she will accept as a ‘proper’ explanation.

In general, too, our accounts are susceptible to the why-regress – as any child of five plus (and any parent or uncle of such a child!) can tell you.  If you have some intellectual honesty, you will end the regress with a ‘we just don’t know why that one – it just is’.  Or maybe ask why we need to regress further….   The reason underlying the why-regress is that we seem to expect accounts to describe causal chains.  But that doesn’t exhaust the possibilities of ways of explaining things – a mathematical proof explains, but there is no causality involved;  many ‘religious’ or political explanations are extended metaphors re-stating a structural relationship;  a physical explanation of the structure of an atom or the chemical explanation of a particular molecule do not give causal histories.  The point about these examples is that they concern ‘idealised’ or abstract or structural entities – there is no need for a causal explanation.  To demand one is to misrepresent the nature of the thing to be accounted for – unless, of course, your mindset is totally hung up on the need for causal explanations.

A further level of analysis takes us into ontology – the study of what kinds of ‘things’ exist (and what we mean by exist – it is arguable that the ‘existence’ of stars, elephants, viruses, rocks, sub-atomic particles, etc exist in a different way – the word has a different meaning – when compared to numbers, Harry Potter, logic, possible worlds, the laws of Economics, etc.).  At this level the idea of a causal explanation for their existence is nonsense, of course: a philosophical explanation may be available, but since we can at that level doubt (in a non-Caertesian way) even the existence of matter or substance or entities, it is maybe a little sterile?

Just as the way demands for explanation explicitly or implicitly indicate the interests of the questioner, so the definition of what counts as an explanation will vary with the questioner’s and answerer’s background, interests and assumptions.   (Ask a chess grandmaster to explain why he made a particular move and unless you are a good player, you will not feel that the move has been accounted for).   So, to try to reduce that variation we find in our discussions here, and to get some common criteria for evaluating our contributions to ‘explanations’ or ‘accounting for things’, here’s something I found in the IAP1 archive….


Any further contributions to the list?

Note that the coherence criterion ‘accounts for’ the idea of people ‘talking past’ one another – in that both sides will claim the other to be incoherent, since they are judging from different baselines.  But it also can help find a compromise in that the sum of human knowledge in the (western) public domain can be taken as a ‘controlled environment’.   Naturally this doesn’t help if a protagonist is so commited to one point of view that she denies such knowledge.

(BTW Carruthers isn't the authority on explanation - try Peter Lipton if you want to get into the subject deeply; sadly I haven't yet had time)

Anyhooo, that’s a few thoughts for starters.  Anybody else got any views on what it is to ‘account for’ things?