tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14526046.post8852735777311020206..comments2023-10-30T08:54:07.935+00:00Comments on Long Words Bother Me: Another Post, Another PaperCarrie Jenkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01023567638433203715noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14526046.post-78688066449178442702007-10-15T10:24:00.000+01:002007-10-15T10:24:00.000+01:00Thanks for this Marco - it's very helpful and I'd ...Thanks for this Marco - it's very helpful and I'd like to acknowledge your help when I write the final version of the paper. If you want I can just list you as 'Marco', but if you want to tell me your full name for this purpose please send me an email: carrie *-dot-* jenkins *-at-* nottingham *-dot-* ac *-dot-* uk. Cheers!Carrie Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01023567638433203715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14526046.post-52507903856169828682007-10-10T15:19:00.000+01:002007-10-10T15:19:00.000+01:00Dear Carrie,It seems one important distinction is ...Dear Carrie,<BR/><BR/>It seems one important distinction is missed here. For any explanandum e there are various propositions that, if true, would explain e. (It shouldn’t matter what stand one takes on what explanations are; I’ll use propositions.) Most of these propositions will be false. That rolling balls stop would be satisfactorily explained by the proposition that demons push against them, if it were true. So this a potential, but not an actual explanation.<BR/><BR/>Once the distinction is made between actual and potential explanations some of the dimensions of variation seem strange. You write: ‘[The] conception [that has it that whether p explains q is a matter of whether p helps us feel like we understand q] seems to be in play when we say there are lots of good explanations of quantum decoherence but only one of them can be true.’ But that seems wrong: saying this needn’t have anything to do with a subjective account of what makes for explanatoriness, it is just to say that there are various potential explanations of which only one is actual. <BR/><BR/>More importantly, inference to the best explanation (IBE) must be inference to the best potential explanation, since, as you note, the point of IBE is that we don’t to begin with know which is actual. But surely we infer what we judge is the likeliest of the potential explanations; and this isn’t a matter of whether we feel the potential explanation explains.<BR/><BR/>The actual/potential distinction cuts across the act/fact/sentence distinction. Surely the right conclusion to take from the context-sensitivity of the relative importance of the explanatory virtues you list is not that whether p is a potential explanation of e is context-sensitive, not that whether p is the actual explanation of p is context-sensitive, but merely that whether the description of an actual explanation is successful is context-sensitive. So being a best explanation cannot be context-sensitive in this sense.<BR/><BR/>Best,<BR/>MarcoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com