Purely Theoretical Explanations
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Purely Theoretical Explanations Giacomo Andreoletti 1
& Jonathan
Tallant 2 & Giuliano Torrengo 3,4
Received: 18 February 2020 / Revised: 14 July 2020 / Accepted: 28 July 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This paper introduces a new kind of explanation that we describe as ‘purely theoretical’. We first present an example, E, of what we take to be a case of purely theoretical explanation. We then show that the explanation we have in mind does not fit neatly into any of the existing categories of explanation. We take this to give us prima facie motivation for thinking that purely theoretical explanation is a distinctive kind of explanation. We then argue that it can earn its keep via application to two existing literatures: the literature on how we explain the truth of true negative existential propositions and the literature on how we explain the truth of true propositions about the past. We reply to some possible concerns regarding the introduction of purely theoretical explanations. We conclude that there is nothing obviously wrong with them and explore the ramifications for particular debates in metaphysics. Keywords Metaphysics . Explanation . Truth-making . Presentism
1 Introduction Our overarching aim in what follows is to articulate a particular type of explanatory mechanism and to defend its applicability in a variety of contexts. Before continuing, we need to make some clarificatory remarks. First, as we understand them, explanations can be right or wrong, true or false. The obvious vehicles for bearing these features (truth, falsity, etc.) are propositions. Thus, explanation is propositional; explanations are either propositions or pluralities thereof.
* Giacomo Andreoletti [email protected]
1
University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russian Federation
2
Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
3
Department of Philosophy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
4
Department of Philosophy, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Philosophia
Second, explanations require an internal structure; a division into what is to be explained (explanandum) on the one hand, and what explains (explanans) on the other. To keep matters simple, we focus on the structure of propositions of the form
. Within this simplification, the structure of an explanation is such that an explanatory proposition is one that contains other propositions as constituents. More precisely, an explanation of the form
, itself a proposition, also contains the propositions p and q, which are identified as the explanandum and the explanans (respectively). As we understand them, propositions are representational entities that are constituted by concepts.1 The conceptual and representational nature of propositions plays an important role in the way explanation works. In the first place, which concepts can play an explanatory role depends on contextual factors.2 But whilst context is important to individuate what is to be explained, to make explicit the explanandu
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