Hitchcock, Christopher (1999) Contrastive Explanation and the Demons of Determinism. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 50 (4). pp. 585-612. ISSN 0007-0882. doi:10.1093/bjps/50.4.585. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20140408-105702805
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Abstract
It is tempting to think that if an outcome had some probability of not occurring, then we cannot explain why that outcome in fact occurred. Despite this intuition, most philosophers of science have come to admit the possibility of indeterministic explanation. Yet some of them continue to hold that if an outcome was not determined, it cannot be explained why that outcome rather than some other occurred. I argue that this is an untenable compromise: if indeterministic explanation is possible, then indeterministic contrastive explanation is possible too. In order to defend this conclusion, I develop an account of contrastive explanation.
| Item Type: | Article | |||||||||
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| Additional Information: | © Oxford University Press 1999. I would like to thank Eric Barnes, John Carroll, Dan Hausman, Paul Humphreys, Peter Lipton, Philip Percival, Larry Temkin, Wes Salmon, Jim Woodward, audience members at the University of California at Los Angeles, and an anonymous referee for discussion and comments. | |||||||||
| Issue or Number: | 4 | |||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1093/bjps/50.4.585 | |||||||||
| Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:20140408-105702805 | |||||||||
| Persistent URL: | https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20140408-105702805 | |||||||||
| Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | |||||||||
| ID Code: | 44757 | |||||||||
| Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | |||||||||
| Deposited By: | INVALID USER | |||||||||
| Deposited On: | 09 Apr 2014 18:37 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 10 Nov 2021 16:56 |
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