On Why Questions

Citation: Paul Teller (1974) On Why Questions. Nous 8 (RSS)
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Summary

Teller reviews and points out some counterexamples in Bromberger’s analysis of answer to why-questions. First, he introduces some technical terms used in Bromberger’s analysis. The presupposition of a why question is the facts for which an explanation is asked in order to answer this why question. Bromberger proposed the abnormic hypothesis, which is used to complete the general rule when we find a new object which also fulfills the general rule but has no included yet. Why the case of that new object or event is the question which needs to be answer. According to Bromberger’s arguments, there are two kinds of abnoromic law, the general abnormic laws and the special abnormic law. In addition, antonymic predicate means the substituted prediction which negates the statement of general law. For example, no rubber is brittle unless it is cold. The sentence following the unless is the antonymic predicates.

However, Teller pointed out some problems, for instance, -Ex (an answer to the why question with presupposition Ax) will not always be the answer. In addition, a putative answer is incorrectly inherent in Bromberger’s condition. Teller thinks that Bromnerger’s account and Hempel’s account are not purely formal, because the concept of lawlikeness which they rely on might be problematic. Although Teller did not provide any adequate explanation which can solve these problems, he suggests that describing contexts when we seek to explain might be helpful.

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

It seems to me that Teller pointed out the importance of contexts like what Van Fraassen (1980) states, although it is not really clear in this reading. I think for archaeology, the context is very crucial and it could be divided to different levels, such as archaeological contexts, history contexts, and environmental context and so on, which is more complicated than the context only for explaining an event or phenomenon.