Why 2

A detailed Summary of Why 2

Have you ever thought about the way your car works? The inner works of the engine, how does the fuel make it work, how does combustion lead to movement and is then passed to the wheels? If you have, what are you going to answer an 8-year-old kid when he asks: "Why does the car move?" Are you going to start explaining high school physics, mechanics, chemistry of combustion and the concept of friction? Or are you just going to say: "Well, the car eats up gas, and that makes the engine move the wheels." Granted, the latter doesn't explain much about what a car is. But it answers the question by the kid's understanding, doesn't it? The question is answered, the kid is happy, and you did not have to spend a few weeks introducing what you just said. Some may argue that this is misleading, but despite the fact that when viewed generally, the simple answer might seem false or incomplete, in the context of the situation, it is quite adequate. That is what van Fraassen is trying to say with regard to scientific explanation.

According to him, there are two problems about scientific explanation. Both are

As acknowledged by van Fraassen, this view of explanation is not shared by some. For instance, according to Hempel, explanations absolutely have to be relevant (i.e. as exact as possible, for instance, to say that Pi is 3.14 is not really specific, but 3.1415926535897932384626433832795... is), and testable, which is included in van Fraassen's criteria of adequacy. Putnam's and Becker's view, formulated more precisely by Salmon, is that explanation is none but an exhibition of statistically relevant factors. This, however, creates a situation, in which we could theoretically answer any question with any answer within relevancy of that question. Let us say, having an adequate theory about a car movement, we could say that the car moves because it is made of metal. This would not be per se false, but certainly this is not an adequate answer. It is, however, relevant, and therefore fits into the view of explanation described above. The third standard view of explanation, voiced by Kitcher and Freidman, is that to explain is to unify our knowledge and understanding. The generalization tendency, as we've discussed earlier, is disputed by van Fraassen's pragmatic view. The reason is simple: we don't know everything. It would probably be safe to say that there is no field in science, where man had achieved complete knowledge. Even such basic, rudimentary fields such as arithmetics tend to surprise us sometimes. Therefore, unity is not possible, at least not now, and we have nothing to do but to answer the questions that we can answer. Modern science progresses in a few directions, one of them being unification of theories whenever possible, but even the most conservative scientist will agree, that if a phenomena can be explained with a completely unique (nevertheless correct) theory, it is far better to explain it using that existing tool we have, rather that leave it unexplained.

The second problem is why is explanation a virtue? Van Fraassen pragmatically rejects the view of some, that explanation is good just because it is, well, an explanation. Instead, he regards an explanation as an answer to a "why-question", and what makes that answer good (and thus is the virtue of the explanation) is its adequacy - the power of answering that question. Quite simplistic, no doubt, but according to van Fraassen, virtually any explanation can be put into the "Why-P [as

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Approximate Word count = 1598
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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