Causal Explanation
The most popular current account of explanation. To explain an
event is to give some information about its causal history.
Literature
The main presentation is Lewis 1986b 'Causal
Explanation'.
Issues
The causal history of an event is very large, so we must choose
part of it as explanatorily relevant. This is covered in Lewis 1986b and Lipton 1993.
If causes are probabilistic, there are additional problems involved
in specifying the explanatory relation. This is covered in Humphreys 1989.
Causal accounts of functional explanation claim that the functional
explanation is really shorthand for a causal account. See Wright 1976.
Criticisms
The main criticisms of the account centre on the claim that there
are non-causal explanations. See Ruben 1990, Chapter VII.
Copyright David Chart 1997