Theories and Explanation MIT理论和解释麻省理工.pptVIP

Explanation in Intuitive Theories Tania Lombrozo Harvard University / UC Berkeley Why have theories? Allow us to generalize from known to unknown Why have theories? Allow us to generalize from known to unknown Other philosophers say: “Theories are the crown of science, for in them our understanding of the world is expressed. The function of theories is to explain.” Rom Harre, The Philosophies of Science, 1985 What’s so great about explanation? Quine Ullian (1970) “… the hypotheses we seek in explanation of past observations serve again in the prediction of future ones. Curiosity thus has survival value, despite having killed a cat.” W.V.O. Quine J.S. Ullian The Web of Belief (1970) Craik (1943) “It is clear that, in fact, the power to explain involves the power of insight and anticipation, and that this is very valuable as a kind of distance-receptor in time, which enables organisms to adapt themselves to situations which are about to arise.” Kenneth Craik The Nature of Explanation (1943) Heider (1958) “If I find sand on my desk, I shall want to find out the underlying reason for this circumstance. I make this inquiry not because of idle curiosity, but because only if I refer this relatively insignificant offshoot event to an underlying core event will I attain a stable environment and have the possibility of controlling it.” Quick Recap Theories serve the function of: Prediction Intervention Explanation But is explanation intrinsically valuable? Perhaps explanation contributes to fulfilling the other functions of theories, .e.g. prediction. The Plan What’s the relationship between theories and explanation? How might explanation contribute to the function of theories, e.g. prediction? “Off-line” explanation-based learning “On-line” explanation-based inference Case study: Simplicity in explanation-based inference Theories Explanation I A theory is “characterized by the phenomena in its domain, its laws and other explanatory mechanisms, and the