Kinney, David
(2018)
On the Explanatory Depth and Pragmatic Value of Coarse-Grained, Probabilistic, Causal Explanations.
[Preprint]
Abstract
This article considers the popular thesis that a more proportional relationship between a cause and its effect yields a more abstract causal explanation of that effect, which in turn produces a deeper explanation. This thesis is taken to have important implications for choosing the optimal granularity of explanation for a given explanandum. In this article, I argue that this thesis is not generally true of probabilistic causal relationships. In light of this finding, I propose a pragmatic, interest-relative measure of explanatory depth. This measure uses a decision-theoretic model of information pricing to determine the optimal granularity of explanation for a given explanandum, agent, and decision problem.
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