A recurring theme

Evidence and explanation

What gives an account its weight? What lets it explain something, and what does it leave out?

This theme connects my interest in how beliefs change with my concern for what explanations actually accomplish. Evidence can support a claim without settling how to explain it. An explanation can illuminate one part of a situation while leaving another untouched.

I return to the relation between the question being asked, the material that can answer it, and the kind of understanding an answer offers.

Questions to keep open

  • What would make me revise this account, rather than accommodate another observation?
  • Which details make a difference to the explanation, and which matter for understanding the situation in other ways?
  • When do different accounts complement one another, and when do they make incompatible claims?
  • What must hold for an insight from one case to travel to another?

Lenses for the questions

These frameworks place different demands on an account. Their differences are part of what makes them useful to read together.

Framework

Explanatory Depth

Which details make a difference, and which can be left out of an explanation.

Framework

Residual Reality

What an explanation leaves outside its frame, and when those omissions matter.

Across the notebook

Places where these questions take a more concrete form.