The Context of Our Query

Michael Lissack

Chapter Chapter 3 in Modes of Explanation, 2014, pp 25-55 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter is intended to serve the function of a literature review: locating the present work within the context and structures of existing research and literature. However (and this is an important caveat), our belief is that the traditional format of a literature survey (author a said x, author b said y, arranged either chronologically or by topic) seldom lends itself directly to an explanatory task—and the aim of this book is to better explain explanation. Thus, we have taken a different approach. You will find that this chapter is mostly quotations—quotations that have been selected and arranged to provide contextual background. The text below draws from the vast literature on explanation, but is organized so as to lay out more effectively the expository framework on which the following chapters rely. The structure of the chapter is that of an embedded hermeneutic circle, where the dialogue is among the quoted authors and the interpretation is left to the reader.

Keywords: Scientific Explanation; Causal Power; Category Membership; Context Dependence; Downward Causation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-40386-5_3

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137403865_3

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