Woodward, James
There is No Such Thing As A Statistical Explanation.
UNSPECIFIED.
Abstract
This paper argues that there are no such things as statistical explanations, understood as explanations of the occurrence of individual outcomes or collections of these by an appeal to the probability of their occurence, where this probability is less than one. This claim contravenes the prevailing orthdoxy, which begins with philosophers like Hempel and Salmon and extends to the present (Strevens, Clatterbuck) that there are such explanations, the only issue being the requirements they must satisfy. A variety of different considerations are advanced in support of my non-existence claim. Along the way some issues having to do with inference to the best explanation and the role of explanation as a goal of inquiry are discussed.
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