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Explanatory Abstractions

Jansson, Lina and Saatsi, Juha (2015) Explanatory Abstractions. [Preprint]

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Abstract

We distinguish different senses in which an explanation can be more or less abstract, and we analyse the connection between explanations' abstractness and their explanatory power. According to our analysis abstract non-causal, mathematical explanations have much in common with counterfactual causal explanations. This opposes a clear recent trend to regard abstractions as explanatory in some sui generis way.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Jansson, Lina
Saatsi, JuhaJ.T.Saatsi@leeds.ac.uk
Additional Information: This work is the result of an equal collaboration. We list the authors alphabetically.
Keywords: Counterfactual theory of explanation; mathematical explanation; non-causal explanation; Pincock; Lange
Subjects: General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User: Juha Saatsi
Date Deposited: 03 Dec 2015 15:16
Last Modified: 03 Dec 2015 15:16
Item ID: 11790
Subjects: General Issues > Explanation
Date: 1 December 2015
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11790

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