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The scope of formal explanation.
1Department of Psychology, Hunter College, CUNY, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10065, USA. sprasada@hunter.cuny.edu.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|April 5, 2017
Summary
Formal explanations, which link properties to kind membership (e.g., a dog has four legs), are domain-general but selective. This study explores the conceptual, pragmatic, and epistemological factors influencing their use and selectivity.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Philosophy of Science
- Psychology
Background:
- Explanation generation involves selecting a mode.
- Formal explanations link properties to kind membership (e.g., 'That has four legs because it is a dog').
- This mode is domain-general but selective in its application.
Purpose of the Study:
- Identify conceptual, pragmatic, and epistemological factors licensing formal explanations.
- Develop a theory for the selectivity of formal explanations.
- Explore links between formal explanations and psychological phenomena.
Main Methods:
- Conceptual analysis of formal explanation.
- Theoretical development of explanation selectivity.
- Literature review connecting formal explanations to related psychological concepts.
Main Results:
- Formal explanations rely on kind representations and are applicable across domains.
- Selectivity arises from how different kinds are distinguished.
- Formal explanation mechanisms may contribute to the illusion of explanatory depth, inherence heuristic, and psychological essentialism.
Conclusions:
- Understanding the factors governing formal explanation is key to generating them.
- The selectivity of formal explanations is tied to the nature of kind distinctions.
- Formal explanations play a role in cognitive biases and essentialist thinking.
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