Ephemeral Mechanisms and Historical Explanation

Citation: Stuart Glennan (2010) Ephemeral Mechanisms and Historical Explanation. Erkenntnis 72(2): 251-266. (RSS)
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Summary

Explanations for human sciences and natural sciences have generally been thought of as existing on a binary, with historical narrative explanations reserved for human sciences and scientific explanations (or ahistorical explanations in non-narrative form) being used in natural science fields. Ahistorical explanations consist of those that explain repeated and mechanistic phenomena, such as meiosis or the generative process of a star. However, this binary creates a false dichotomy, as narrative explanations can be used in both human and natural sciences, uniting explanatory thought in both fields.

In this article, Glennan explores three approaches to explanation that are common to explanatory thought. Salmon's causality, or Causal Nexus approach, explains the causal process of a phenomena. The Mechanistic approach promoted by Glennan and others explores the mechanism behind a phenomena, for example, this approach can explain the mechanisms that allow the eye to see light within a given frequency range. This approach is similar to the causal approach, but rather then looking at particular events, as Salmon's approach does, this approach looks at type-level events.

Lastly, Glennan discusses the narrative approach, in which a phenomena is explained in narrative form. Each link in the narrative chain must be able to be explained by a generalizable law. Essentially, each narrative link describe the causal links that resulted in the phenomena. Narrative explanations often explain ephemeral mechanisms, which are abstract mechanisms that can compound to result in the phenomena.