ADDENDUM TO “THE PRAGMATIC CHARACTER OF EXPLANATION”

Is the Concept of a Correct Explanation “Pragmatic”?

In this chapter, when speaking of evaluating explanations, I focus on illocutionary evaluations. These are “strongly pragmatic” because they are concerned with determining whether E is a good explanation for an explainer to give in explaining q to some type of audience.

In terms of material introduced in this chapter, we can say this: E is a correct explanation of q if (i) Q is a content question; (ii) E is an ordered pair (p; explaining q), whose first member p is a complete content-giving proposition with respect to Q, and whose second member is an act-type of explaining; and (iii) p is true. Because a type of illocutionary act is mentioned, this concept of “correct explanation” is pragmatic in the weak sense. But it is not strongly pragmatic, since whether (p; explaining q) is a correct explanation of q does not depend upon who, if anyone, gives the explanation, or upon what audience, if any, is intended. In The Nature of Explanation, pp. 103-106, I show how this definition can be readily expanded to cover correct explanations that are not in the form of or­dered pairs of the sort in question (e.g., “the soldier died because of a severe chest wound”).

This concept of correct explanation is important in my definitions of “potential” and “veridical” evidence, given in chapter 1. Thus, a necessary condition for e to be potential (or veridical) evidence that h, given b, is that the probability be greater than 1/2 that there is an explanatory con­nection between h and e, given e and b. Such an explanatory connection exists if and only if either h correctly explains e, or e correctly explains h, or something correctly explains why both e and h are true. Whether the latter obtains is not pragmatic in the strong sense. Its truth does not depend upon who, if anyone, is explaining what to whom.