Reasons Why
Bradford Skow
Abstract
It is first argued that a theory of explanation is, or should be, a theory of answers to why-questions. It is then argued that a theory of answers to why-questions should take the form of a theory of reasons why. A theory of reasons why, that is restricted to reasons why some given event occurred, is proposed, according to which one reason why E happened is that R iff the fact that R is a cause, or a ground, of the fact that E happened. This theory is compared to other causal theories of explanation. A distinction is drawn between two “levels” of reasons: the reasons why Q, on the one hand, an ... More
It is first argued that a theory of explanation is, or should be, a theory of answers to why-questions. It is then argued that a theory of answers to why-questions should take the form of a theory of reasons why. A theory of reasons why, that is restricted to reasons why some given event occurred, is proposed, according to which one reason why E happened is that R iff the fact that R is a cause, or a ground, of the fact that E happened. This theory is compared to other causal theories of explanation. A distinction is drawn between two “levels” of reasons: the reasons why Q, on the one hand, and the reasons why those reasons are reasons, on the other. This distinction is used to show that alleged examples of non-causal explanations are in fact consistent with the proposed theory. The theory is extended to provide a causal theory of teleological explanations. Finally, it is argued that the distinction between levels of reasons is needed to defend an adequate causal theory of agents’ reasons for acting.
Keywords:
explanation,
why-question,
reason,
causation,
grounding,
teleology,
action
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198785842 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198785842.001.0001 |
