a normative strongaccountstrong of the need for explanation - csu, chico.pdfVIP

Forthcoming in Synthèse A Normative Account of the Need for Explanation Wai-hung Wong Zanja Yudell Although explanation is a central topic in the philosophy of science and several important models of scientific explanation have been developed and widely discussed, there is one issue concerning explanation that has drawn very little attention, namely, why some phenomena1 need explanation while some do not. Some may think that any phenomenon that has not been explained needs explanation. Others may think that if we divide (heretofore unexplained) phenomena into those that need explanation and those that do not, it is merely because we are puzzled by, or curious about, the former phenomena but not the latter. According to this line of thinking, the question of why some phenomena need explanation while some do not is a psychological question in disguise: the question is in fact why some people are puzzled 2 by some, but not all, phenomena and want to have an explanation of them. In this paper we will argue that the distinction between phenomena that need explanation and those that do not need one is philosophical, not psychological, because the distinction can be drawn normatively. We will propose a normative account of the need for explanation. In section I, we will explain the difference between a psychological account and a normative account of the need for explanation, and why a normative account is philosophically significant. Section II will be a criticism of what we call the surprise account of the need for explanation, which seems more like a psychological account than a normative account. We will also explain why the account is appealing and partially successful. In section III we will discuss a more recent account suggested by Stephen R. Grimm (2008), which can be called the fact-and-foil account . It is not clear whether the fact-and-foil account is meant to be p