Abstract Explanation and Difference-Making

Christopher Pincock (Missouri) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium titled "Abstract Explanation and Difference-Making". Abstract: Recent work on scientific explanation by Woodward and Strevens has emphasized the significance of causal explanation. Both philosophers allow for a kind of non-causal explanation, but have done little to clarify its importance for science or its relationship to causal explanation. In this paper I argue for a kind of non-causal explanation that I call abstract explanation. Abstract explanation is a kind of explanation that requires a generalization of the notion of difference-making that is central to both Woodward and Strevens. From this more general perspective, one can see how non-causal relationships can make a difference to a scientific phenomenon. This sort of connection is illustrated using two cases where a mathematical truth is crucial to a scientific explanation. I conclude that only a broad notion of explanation that encompasses both causal and non-causal explanation is feasible.