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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Suppositional Reasoning in Scientific Explanations

Suppositional Reasoning in Scientific Explanations

Pilpel, Avital

Paperback

Philosophy

ISBN10: 3836456222
ISBN13: 9783836456227
Publisher: Vdm Verlag
Published: Jul 8 2008
Pages: 104
Weight: 0.33
Height: 0.22 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
To suppose X means to pretend to change one's belief for the sake of the argument to include X. I examine the role of suppositional reasoning in the evaluation of purported scientific explanations of various sorts, based on Hempel and Oppenheim's deductive-nomological and inductive-statistical explanations. First, for each type of explanation, I present the suppositional reasoning conditions it must satisfy. Second, I argue that a specific decision making method (Isaac Levi's) should be used to determine how one is to change one's beliefs for the sake of the argument in each case. Third, I evaluate in detail whether purported explanations, both intuitively explanatory and intuitively non-explanatory satisfy (or do not satisfy) these conditions. Fourth, I show that the suppositional reasoning conditions for explanations, when evaluated correctly, systematically solve the many problems of the original Hempel-Oppenheim model of explanations.

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