explanation

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noun

1. Something that serves to explain or clarify: clarification, construction, decipherment, elucidation, exegesis, explication, exposition, illumination, illustration, interpretation. Archaic enucleation. See explain/baffle.
2. A statement of causes or motives: account, justification, rationale, rationalization, reason. See explain/baffle.

Definition: clarification; reason
Antonyms: cloudiness, complication

Since so much of life both inside and outside the study is concerned with finding explanations of things, it would be desirable to have a concept of what counts as a good explanation, and what distinguishes good from bad. Under the influence of logical positivist approaches to the structure of science, it was felt that the criterion ought to be found in a definite logical relationship between the explanans (that which does the explaining) and the explanandum (that which is to be explained). This approach culminated in the covering law model of explanation, or the view that an event is explained when it is subsumed under a law of nature, that is, its occurrence is deducible from the law plus a set of initial conditions. A law would itself be explained by being deduced from a higher-order or covering law, in the way that Kepler's laws of planetary motion are deducible from Newton's laws of motion. The covering law model may be adapted to include explanation by showing that something is probable, given a statistical law. Questions for the covering law model include querying whether laws are necessary to explanation (we explain everyday events without overtly citing laws); querying whether they are sufficient (it may not explain an event just to say that it is an example of the kind of thing that always happens); and querying whether a purely logical relationship is adapted to capturing the requirements we make of explanations. These may include, for instance, that we have a ‘feel’ for what is happening, or that the explanation proceeds in terms of things that are familiar to us or unsurprising, or that we can give a model of what is going on, and none of these notions is captured in a purely logical approach. Recent work, therefore, has tended to stress the contextual and pragmatic elements in requirements for explanation, so that what counts as a good explanation given one set of concerns may not do so given another.

The argument to the best explanation is the view that once we can select the best of any competing explanations of an event, then we are justified in accepting it, or even believing it. The principle needs qualification, since sometimes it is unwise to ignore the antecedent improbability of a hypothesis which would explain the data better than others: e.g. the best explanation of a coin falling heads 530 times in 1,000 tosses might be that it is biased to give a probability of heads of 0.53, but it might be more sensible to suppose that it is fair, or to suspend judgement.

An account that attempts to identify the cause, nature and relationships of a phenomenon, Scientific explanations, especially those of the physical sciences, often involve the use of scientific laws and theories. In the social sciences, explanations may also involve the reasons and meanings provided by actors.

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Quotes:

"Never explain yourself. Your friend don't need it and your enemies won't believe it." - Source Unknown

"The less you know about a subject, the longer it takes you to explain it." - Source Unknown

"There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things." - William Shakespeare

"The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanations." - Saki

"Never explain -- your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you anyway." - Elbert Hubbard

See more famous quotes about Explanations

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2009)

An explanation is a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts.

This description may establish rules or laws, and may clarify the existing ones in relation to any objects, or phenomena examined. The components of an explanation can be implicit, and be interwoven with one another.

An explanation is often underpinned by an understanding that is represented by different media such as music, text, and graphics. Thus, an explanation is subjected to interpretation, and discussion.

In scientific research, explanation is one of the purposes of research, e.g., exploration and description. Explanation is a way to uncover new knowledge, and to report relationships among different aspects of studied phenomena. Explanations have varied explanatory power.

Contents 1 Explanations and arguments 2 Explanations and justification 3 Types of explanations 4 See also 5 Further reading 6 External links

Explanations and arguments

Main article: Argument

While arguments attempt to show that something is, will be, or should be the case, explanations try to show why or how something is or will be. If Fred and Joe address the issue of whether or not Fred's cat has fleas, Joe may state: "Fred, your cat has fleas. Observe the cat is scratching right now." Joe has made an argument that the cat has fleas. However, if Fred and Joe agree on the fact that the cat has fleas, they may further question why this is so and put forth an explanation: "The reason the cat has fleas is that the weather has been damp." The difference is that the attempt is not to settle whether or not some claim is true, but to show why it is true.

In this sense, arguments aim to contribute knowledge, whereas explanations aim to contribute understanding.

Arguments and explanations largely resemble each other in rhetorical use. This is the cause of much difficulty in thinking critically about claims. There are several reasons for this difficulty.

• People often are not themselves clear on whether they are arguing for or explaining something.
• The same types of words and phrases are used in presenting explanations and arguments.
• The terms 'explain' or 'explanation,' et cetera are frequently used in arguments.
• Explanations are often used within arguments and presented so as to serve as arguments.

Explanations and justification

Main article: Justification

Justification is the reason why someone properly holds a belief, the explanation as to why the belief is a true one, or an account of how one knows what one knows. In much the same way arguments and explanations may be confused with each other, so too may explanations and justifications. Statements which are justifications of some action take the form of arguments. For example attempts to justify a theft usually explain the motives (e.g., to feed a starving family).

It is important to be aware when an explanation is not a justification. A criminal profiler may offer an explanation of a suspect's behavior (e.g.; the person lost their job, the person got evicted, etc.). Such statements may help us understand why the person committed the crime, however an uncritical listener may believe the speaker is trying to gain sympathy for the person and his or her actions. It does not follow that a person proposing an explanation has any sympathy for the views or actions being explained. This is an important distinction because we need to be able to understand and explain terrible events and behavior in attempting to discourage it.

Types of explanations

There are many and varied events, objects, and facts which require explanation. So too, there are many different types of explanation. Aristotle recognized at least four types of explanation. Other types of explanation are Deductive-nomological, Functional, Historical, Psychological, Reductive, Teleological, Methodological explanations.

See also

• Abductive reasoning
• Cogency
• Epistemology
• Explanatory gap
• Explanans
• Inductive reasoning
• Inquiry
• Knowledge
• Scientific method
• Unexplained
• Rationalization
• Theory
• Wesley Salmon

Further reading

• Moore, Brooke Noel and Parker, Richard. (2012) Critical Thinking. 10th ed. Published by McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-803828-6.

External links

Look up explanation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Explanations

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Scientific Explanation
• Explanation in several languages and meanings

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