On explanatory practice and disciplinary identity

This essay explores connections between explanatory discourse and disciplinary identity. While explanation is frequently assumed to be one of the central aims of the sciences, I contend that if we want to appreciate explanation's role within scientific practice, we need to look elsewhere. Explanations encode the aims and values of particular scientific communities, telling practitioners what they should want to know about the world and how they should reason to get there. By inculcating patterns of reasoning consistent with these aims and values, explanatory discourse is crucial for the formation of cohesive scientific disciplines. Yet because such discourse is frequently grounded in exemplars, the implicit nature of exemplar-based training must be confronted. I argue that exemplars are an appropriate vehicle for communicating skill-based knowledge and methodological norms and, additionally, that exemplars are a practical means of grappling with the indeterminacy of theory application.