Explanation and Understanding (New Problems of Philosophy)

Science has multiple goals: to describe the world, as it is now; to predict the future and to make inferences about the past. Science also aims to understand the world – to explain why it is the way it is. But what does it take to explain a phenomenon? How does science generate understanding and what does that take?

In this thorough and clearly written introduction to scientific explanation, Arnon Levy explores the following problems and questions:

• the background to the topic of scientific explanation, particularly the questions of what an explanation is, what makes a good explanation and why seek them in the first place
• empiricism about explanation: Hempel’s deductive-nomological model and its problems
• unificationism about explanation: must good scientific explanations fit into an overall ‘explanatory store’?
• causation and explanation: Lewis’s description-based model, Woodward’s interventionist view and Strevens’s criterion of selection theory
• connections between explanation and understanding
• models, idealization and explanation
• non-causal explanation and explanation in non-scientific contexts
• the nature of understanding.

Additional features, such as chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading and a glossary, make this an excellent resource for students of philosophy of science, metaphysics and epistemology.

Arnon Levy is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He holds a PhD in philosophy and an MA in biology, both from Harvard University. His work covers explanation and understanding in science, the nature of modeling and scientific representation, and the role of science in society.