Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT Laws play some role in explanations: at the very least, they somehow connect what is explained, or the explanandum, to what explains, or the explanans. Thus, thermodynamical laws connect the match's being struck and its lightning, so that the former causes the latter; and laws about set formation connect Socrates' existence with {Socrates}'s existence, so that the former grounds the latter. But is there more to the explanatory role of laws? A natural proposal, which finds considerable support in the literature, is that laws simply are reasons why. That is, besides connecting the explanandum with a suitable ground or cause, they take part, together with these, in explaining why the explanandum obtains. In this paper, I present two arguments that show that this proposal cannot hold in general. They each point to one unacceptable consequence: a suspicious infinite extendibility of explanantia; and a failure of the irreflexivity of “because.”
Source: Analytic Philosophy
DOI: 10.1111/phib.12391
Author: Julio De Rizzo
Institution: University of Vienna
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,900
Funders: Austrian Science Fund, Universität Wien
Award: G4569037072
OpenAlex ID: W4414195847