Monday, August 13, 2018

Calling for an explanation

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

  1. 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:

  1. 44877 x 5757 = 258356889
  2. Bob is wearing a shirt
These are facts that we all expect to have an explanation (e.g., the explanation of (2) is long and boring, involving many instance of the distributive law and the explanation of (3) presumably has to do with psychosocial and physical facts). They are, moreover, facts that "should" have an explanation. There would be something seriously wrong with logic itself if a complex multiplication fact had no explanation (it's certainly not a candidate for being a Goedelian unprovable truth), and with reality if people wore shirts for no reason at all.

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:

  1. 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.)

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9 comments:

  1. steveAugust 13, 2018 at 3:25 PM

    I assume you'd relate this to events like an uncanny response to prayer that demands a special explanation.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Philip RandAugust 14, 2018 at 3:25 AM

    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?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Philip RandAugust 14, 2018 at 3:58 AM

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Martin CookeAugust 14, 2018 at 10:43 AM

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Philip RandAugust 14, 2018 at 11:07 AM

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Philip RandAugust 14, 2018 at 7:38 PM

    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

    ReplyDelete
  7. Philip RandAugust 15, 2018 at 3:47 AM

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Martin CookeAugust 17, 2018 at 1:51 PM

    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")

    ReplyDelete
  9. Philip RandAugust 18, 2018 at 1:55 AM

    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.

    ReplyDelete