If I am playing a board game and the last ten rolls of my die were 1, that calls out for an explanation. If only Jewish and Ethiopian people get Tay-Sachs disease, that calls out for an explanation.
It seems right to say that
- a fact calls out for an explanation provided it is the sort of fact that we would expect to have an explanation, a fact whose nature is such that it "should" have an explanation, a fact such that we would be disappointed in reality in not having an explanation of.
But now consider two boring facts:
- 44877 x 5757 = 258356889
- Bob is wearing a shirt
So by (1), these would have to be facts that call out for an explanation. But I don't hear their cry. I am confident that they have explanations, but I wouldn't say that they call out for them. So it doesn't seem that (1) captures the concept of calling out for an explanation.
As I reflect on cases, it seems to me that calling out for an explanation has something to do with the intellectual desirability of having an explanation rather. Someone with a healthy level of curiosity would want to know why the last ten rolls were 1 or why only Jewish and Ethiopian people get Tay-Sachs. On the other hand, while I'm confident that there is a fine mathematical reason why 44877 x 5757 = 258356889, I have no desire to know that reason, even though I have at least a healthy degree of curiosity about mathematics.
This suggests to me an anthropocentric (and degreed) story like the following:
- A fact calls out for an explanation to the degree that one would be intellectually unfulfilled in not knowing an explanation.
It is sometimes said that a fact's calling out for an explanation is evidence that it has an explanation. I think (4) coheres with this. That something is needed for our fulfillment is evidence that the thing is possible. For beings tend to be capable of fulfillment. (This is a kind of cosmic optimism. No doubt connected to theism, but in what direction the connection runs needs investigation.)
9 comments:
I assume you'd relate this to events like an uncanny response to prayer that demands a special explanation.
1/ Brute facts -> have no explanation
2/ Boring facts -> have no calling
3/ Facts -> have a calling
Therefore, is there any reason to think that the logic is unteachable?
Let's play Exemplify with the above and see who wins?
Adjectives:
1/ Brute
2/ Bored
3/ Called
Substantives:
1/ fact
2/ fact
3/ fact
Ooops! Everybody loses!
Logic is unteachable.
I like your 4 because of things like existence: if you think that there must be a reason why something exists, rather than nothing, it is because you will feel unfulfilled until you find or work out a satisfactory explanation; if you do not so think, it is because you have no such feeling of dissatisfaction.
Actually Martin Cooke... what Dr Pruss is pointing out is what philosophical "problems" amount to, i.e. the generalised philosophical "problem".
And he is in part correct; there are indeed roughly three groups: the qualified, the bland and what he calls the explanative.
However, in reality the explanative should really be called the allusive.
The third group, the allusive, promises to meet the fulfilment needs of Dr Pruss… however, when pressed they always reveal themselves to be bland, and if not pressed, Dr Pruss calls them a mystery, and philosophers worry that they don't understand what they mean.
Dr Pruss
When one does press your statement it becomes clear that:
1/ a fact's calling out for an explanation is evidence that it has an explanation
is simply equivalent to the adage:
2/ a well posed mathematical question contains the seed of its own solution
The next step (in order to give you what you want) is to ask:
Why does a well posed mathematical question contain the seed of its own solution?
The answer to this question gives you Proverbs 25:2
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
The fact can call out for an explanation
and yet its call might not be heard.
So, while a failure to hear such a call
is some evidence that there is no such call,
there is the question: how much?
Would a "healthy level of curiosity" need to know
why there is something rather than nothing?
(I can imagine a theist saying "Yes"
and a materialist saying "No")
Martin Cooke
There is a reason why the theist answers yes and the materialist answers no.
Theist: Reason can transcend anything reason can formulate.
Materialist: Reason cannot transcend anything reason can formulate.
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