Saatsi, Juha and Pexton, Mark (2013) Reassessing Woodward's account of explanation: regularities, counterfactuals, and non-causal explanations. In: UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

We reassess Woodward’s counterfactual account of explanation in relation to regularity explananda. Woodward (2005) presents an account of causal explanation. We argue, by using an explanation of Kleiber’s law to illustrate, that the account can cover also some non-causal explanations. This leads to a tension between the two key aspects of Woodward’s account: the counterfactual aspect and the causal aspect. We explore this tension and make a case for jettisoning the causal aspect as constitutive of explanatory power in connection with regularity explananda.

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Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Saatsi, Juha j.t.saatsi@leeds.ac.uk Pexton, Mark
Additional Information:	To be published in PSA2012 proceedings
Keywords:	Explanation, Woodward, non-causal, scaling-laws
Subjects:	General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Juha Saatsi
Date Deposited:	11 Jan 2013 13:33
Last Modified:	11 Jan 2013 13:33
Item ID:	9517
Subjects:	General Issues > Explanation
Date:	10 January 2013
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9517

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