The roles of possibility and mechanism in narrative explanation
There is a fairly long-standing distinction between what are called the ideographic as opposed to nomothetic sciences. The nomothetic sciences, such as physics, offer explanations in terms of the laws and regular operations of nature. The ideographic sciences, such as natural history (or, more contr...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of Chicago Press
2019
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| Online Access: | View Fulltext in Publisher |
| LEADER | 01134nam a2200133Ia 4500 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 001 | 10.1086-705528 | ||
| 008 | 220511s2019 CNT 000 0 und d | ||
| 020 | |a 00318248 (ISSN) | ||
| 245 | 1 | 0 | |a The roles of possibility and mechanism in narrative explanation |
| 260 | 0 | |b University of Chicago Press |c 2019 | |
| 856 | |z View Fulltext in Publisher |u https://doi.org/10.1086/705528 | ||
| 520 | 3 | |a There is a fairly long-standing distinction between what are called the ideographic as opposed to nomothetic sciences. The nomothetic sciences, such as physics, offer explanations in terms of the laws and regular operations of nature. The ideographic sciences, such as natural history (or, more controversially, evolutionary biology), cast explanations in terms of narratives. This article offers an account of what is involved in offering an explanatory narrative in the historical (ideographic) sciences. I argue that narrative explanations involve two chief components: a possibility space and an explanatory causal mechanism. © 2019 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved. | |
| 700 | 1 | |a Swaim, D.G. |e author | |
| 773 | |t Philosophy of Science | ||