Kitcher, Philip

Kitcher, Philip. 1989. "Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure of the World." In P. Kitcher W. Salmon, eds. Scientific Explanation (pp. 410-505). Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press. 

Kitcher, Philip. 1981. "Explanatory Unification." Philosophy of Science 4S 507-531. 

Jenkins, Carrie S. 2011. Is metaphysical dependence irreflexive TheMonist 94 267-276. Kemeny, John G., and Paul Oppenheim. 1956. On reduction. Philosophical Studies 1 6-19. Kitcher, Philip. 1981. Explanatory unification. Philosophy of Science 48 507-531. 

Solomon, M. 1995. Legend Naturalism and Scientific Progress An Essay on Philip Kitcher s the Advancement of Science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 26 205-218. 

The difference between the epistemic model of explanation and the ontic one becomes clear at this point Cause... because, as Philip Kitcher elegantly puts it, is the slogan of the epistemic school. Explanations frequently refer to causes simply because they explain much, but there is no conditio sine qua non (1989). If it turned out that other non-causal regularities were better explanatory vehicles the causal explanation would be dropped. The adherent of the ontic model of explanation, on the other hand, maintains that any valid explanation has to cite causes of the explanandum because explanation owes its only possible sense to a thorough assumption about the ontic constitution of our world. Those who want to capture the validity of explanations in their dependency on causes have to give an answer to the question of what causality consists in. Here, I sketch the two major accounts of causality. 

Many thanks to Peter Godfrey-Smith, Michael Strevens, Anthony Everett, and Deena Skolnick who helped me to clarify the main ideas of this paper tremendously. I would also like to thank Philip Kitcher, Sandra Mitchell, Paul Churchland, Roald Hoffmann, John Brauman, Paul Needham, Tania Lombrozo, and Daniel Corbett for helpful discussions of earlier drafts. The work in this paper was partially supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. 

Salmon, Wesley. 1989. Four decades of explanation. In Scientific explanation Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science, 13, ed. Philip Kitcher tmd Wesley Salmon, 3-219. Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press. 

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