IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-1-137-40386-5_1.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Introduction: Thoughts on Explanation

In: Modes of Explanation

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Lissack
  • Abraham Graber

Abstract

This is a book about explanation. Its origins lie in the all too frequent observation that our way of thinking often does not match the world. Such mismatches give rise to ambiguity and uncertainty. The ambiguity, in turn, acts as both a constraint on possible actions (including the action of reliable prediction) and the desire to “explain” what is going on. Explanation is the name for the process we use to answer the questions raised by observed ambiguities. Explanation is also the name for the product of such processes. This process/product divergence is merely a hint of the many conflicting approaches to be found in the contemporary understanding of explanation. This book is the first in decades to attempt to bring these conflicting approaches together and to offer a compelling narrative to explore how those conf licts can converge.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Lissack & Abraham Graber, 2014. "Introduction: Thoughts on Explanation," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Michael Lissack & Abraham Graber (ed.), Modes of Explanation, chapter 0, pages 3-16, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-40386-5_1
    DOI: 10.1057/9781137403865_1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-40386-5_1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.