Best Explanations

Best Explanations PDF Author: Kevin McCain
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198746903
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Twenty philosophers offer new essays examining the form of reasoning known as inference to the best explanation - widely used in science and in our everyday lives, yet still controversial. Best Explanations represents the state of the art when it comes to understanding, criticizing, and defending this form of reasoning.

Best Explanations

Best Explanations PDF Author: Kevin McCain
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198746903
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Twenty philosophers offer new essays examining the form of reasoning known as inference to the best explanation - widely used in science and in our everyday lives, yet still controversial. Best Explanations represents the state of the art when it comes to understanding, criticizing, and defending this form of reasoning.

Inference to the Best Explanation

Inference to the Best Explanation PDF Author: Peter Lipton
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415242035
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Inference to the Best Explanation is an unrivalled exposition of a theory of particular interest to students both of epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Best Explanations

Best Explanations PDF Author: Kevin McCain
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191063908
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Explanatory reasoning is ubiquitous. Not only are rigorous inferences to the best explanation used pervasively in the sciences, this kind of reasoning is common in everyday life. Despite its widespread use, inference to the best explanation is still in need of precise formulation, and it remains controversial. On the one hand, supporters of explanationism take inference to the best explanation to be a justifying form of inference; some even take all justification to be a matter of explanatory reasoning. On the other hand, critics object that inference to the best explanation is not a fundamental form of inference, and some argue that we should be skeptical of inference to the best explanation in general. This volume brings together twenty philosophers to explore various aspects of inference to the best explanation and the debates surrounding it. These specially commissioned essays constitute the cutting edge of research on the role explanatory considerations play in epistemology and philosophy of science.

The Beginning of Infinity

The Beginning of Infinity PDF Author: David Deutsch
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141969695
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 571

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Book Description
'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility. 'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist 'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman

The Art of Explanation

The Art of Explanation PDF Author: Lee LeFever
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118417313
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Your guide to becoming an explanation specialist. You've done the hard work. Your product or service works beautifully - but something is missing. People just don't see the big idea - and it's keeping you from being successful. Your idea has an explanation problem. The Art of Explanation is for business people, educators and influencers who want to improve their explanation skills and start solving explanation problems. Author Lee LeFever is the founder of Common Craft, a company known around the world for making complex ideas easy to understand through short animated videos. He is your guide to helping audiences fall in love with your ideas, products or services through better explanations in any medium. You will learn to: Plan: Learn explanation basics, what causes them to fail and how to diagnose explanation problems. Package: Using simple elements, create an explanation strategy that builds confidence and motivates your audience. Present: Produce remarkable explanations with visuals and media. The Art of Explanation is your invitation to become an explanation specialist and see why explanation is now a fundamental skill for professionals.

Conjunctive Explanations

Conjunctive Explanations PDF Author: Jonah N. Schupbach
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000884074
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Philosophers and psychologists are increasingly investigating the conditions under which multiple explanations are better in conjunction than they are individually. This book brings together leading scholars to provide an interdisciplinary and unified discussion of such “conjunctive explanations.” The book starts with an introductory chapter expounding the notion of conjunctive explanation and motivating a multifaceted approach to its study. The remaining chapters are divided into three parts. Part I includes chapters on “The Nature of Conjunctive Explanations.” Each chapter illustrates distinct ways in which explanatory multiplicity is motivated by a careful study of the nature and concept of explanation. The second part (“Reasoning About Conjunctive Explanations”) includes chapters on the epistemology and logic of conjunctive explanations. Here the contributors propose and evaluate various norms for reasoning correctly about and to conjunctive explanations. Part III concerns “The Psychology of Conjunctive Explanations,” with contributions discussing conditions under which humans entertain and hold multiple explanations of single explananda simultaneously and the cognitive limitations and capacities for doing so. Conjunctive Explanations will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on explanation in philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophical logic, and cognitive psychology.

Explanations

Explanations PDF Author: John Cornwell
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191647438
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Our lives, states of health, relationships, behaviour, experiences of the natural world, and the technologies that shape our contemporary existence are subject to a superfluity of competing, multi-faceted and sometimes incompatible explanations. Widespread confusion about the nature of 'explanation' and its scope and limits pervades popular exposition of the natural sciences, popular history and philosophy of science. This fascinating and intriguing book explores the way explanations work, why they vary between disciplines, periods, and cultures, and whether they have any necessary boundaries. In other words, Explanations aims to achieve a better understanding of explanation, both within the sciences and the humanities. It features contributions from expert writers from a wide range of disciplines, including science, philosophy, mathematics, and social anthropology.

Philosophical Explanations

Philosophical Explanations PDF Author: Robert Nozick
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674266277
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 788

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Book Description
In this highly original work, Robert Nozick develops new views on philosophy’s central topics and weaves them into a unified philosophical perspective. It is many years since a major work in English has ranged so widely over philosophy’s fundamental concerns: the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the question of why there is something rather than nothing, the foundations of ethics, the meaning of life. Writing in a distinctive and personal philosophical voice, Mr. Nozick presents a new mode of philosophizing. In place of the usual semi-coercive philosophical goals of proof, of forcing people to accept conclusions, this book seeks philosophical explanations and understanding, and thereby stays truer to the original motivations for being interested in philosophy. Combining new concepts, daring hypotheses, rigorous reasoning, and playful exploration, the book exemplifies how philosophy can be part of the humanities.

Evidence

Evidence PDF Author: Arthur Best
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780735562882
Category : Evidence (Law)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this new edition, Arthur Best retains the features and the quality that made this E&E the bestselling evidence ancillary. The author: - provides clear explanations of all of the topics that students find difficult, including relevance, hearsay, and impeachment - presents key concepts in tables and charts for easy reference - supplies questions with varying degrees of difficulty and provides clear explanations of the analysis of those questions - designs each chapter so it includes all of the material necessary to answer the questions, providing students with an incentive to read chapters thoroughly - provides an appendix with a plain language version of the Federal Rules of Evidence, complete with new amendments to the Rules The Sixth Edition: - covers changes in Confrontation Clause analysis, reflecting Crawford v. Washington and Davis v. Washington - reflects the 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence which clarify that character evidence to show propensity is totally barred in a civil case even if the circumstances are similar to those of a criminal case; change Rule 408 governing use of statements made in settlement negotiations, prohibiting their use for impeachment by contradiction or prior inconsistent statement, and allowing the use in criminal cases of statements made to government agents during settlement negotiations related to a civil case; tighten the prohibition in Rule 606(b) against juror testimony about errors in verdicts (allowing testimony only about mistakes in entering a verdict on a verdict form); treat a crime, for purposes of Rule 609, as involving dishonesty or false statement only if it can readily be determined thatestablishing the elements of the crime required proof or admission of an act of dishonesty or false statement

Conjunctive Explanations in Science and Religion

Conjunctive Explanations in Science and Religion PDF Author: Diarmid A. Finnegan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000840409
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This book investigates the nature and relevance of conjunctive explanations in the context of science and religion. It explores questions concerning how scientific and religious explanations for features of the world or phenomena within it relate to each other and whether they might work together in mutually enriching ways. The chapters address topics including the relationship between Darwinian and teleological explanations, non-reductive explanations of mind and consciousness, and explanations of Christian faith and religious experience, while others explore theological and philosophical issues concerning the nature and feasibility of conjunctive explanations. Overall, the contributions help to provide conceptual clarity on how scientific and religious explanations might or might not work together conjunctively as well as exploring how these ideas relate to specific topics in science and religion more generally.