“解释需要”:一种基于理由的分析

The Reason-based Account of the Need for Explanation

尽管科学解释在科学哲学讨论中长期处于核心地位,关于"解释需要"的问题却始终未能得到充分的关注:为何似乎有些现象是需要解释的,而有些并非如此?解释需要的产生不应被仅仅等同于某种类似困惑的产生的心理机制。相反,它可以作为一种基于理由的需要而得到刻画:解释需要源于认知主体的概念结构与观察到的现象间的冲突;而为了得到满意的理论解释,认知主体需要相应地更新或调整其概念结构。这种对解释需要的刻画可能独立于任何一种特定的关于科学解释的理论,但仍能回应所谓科学理论间的不可通约性问题。

Although explanation has been a central issue in the philosophy of science,little attention has been drawn to the issue of the need for explanation:Why do some phenomena need an explanation while some do not?The emergence of an explanatory need should not be reduced to a merely psychological mechanism just like the emergence of curiosity or puzzlement.Rather,it can be given a reason-based account:a phenomenon generates a rational demand for explanation when it conflicts with the epistemic subject’s conceptual structure;the subject needs to accordingly update or adjust her conceptual structure in order to obtain a satisfying explanation of the phenomenon.The reason-based account of the need for explanation is not only neutral between various accounts of scientific explanation but can also respond to the problem of incommensurability between scientific theories.