Explanation and inferentialism
An anti-realist solution to the paradox of explanation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35588/cc.v5i1.6588Keywords:
Explanation's Paradox, inferentialism, explanation, economic models, paradoxAbstract
In this paper, I propose a possible anti-realist solution to the paradox of explanation. This proposal is in line with the instrumentalist position of Reiss (2012b, 2013) but goes further: a normative inferentialist position of explanation is proposed.
First, I will show some fundamental aspects of inferentialism in the context of explanation, and then, I will show how an inferentialist position regarding paradox of explanation reduces to accepting the following three propositions: 1. models are true in the sense of true explanations, 2. models explain, and 3. only true explanations explain. This expresses a solution to the paradox insofar as it is perfectly possible to accept each of the three propositions.
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