Explanatory Pluralism

By Neil Campbell.

Published by The International Journal of the Humanities

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In this paper I explore an avenue of support for what we might call explanatory pluralism—the view that reason-giving is not a species of causal explanation. I argue that explaining by appealing to an agent's reasons satisfy our epistemic needs and create understanding in a quite different way than causal explanations. Causal explanations explain by subsuming events under true causal generalizations, whereas reasons explain by rendering an agent's behaviour rational.

Keywords:	Action, Explanation, Reason, Cause

The International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 5, Issue 3, pp.25-30. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 482.418KB).

Dr. Neil Campbell

Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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