Conjunctive Explanations

Jonah N. Schupbach is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah (USA), researching the nature, logic, and limitations of human reasoning. His recent publications include the 2018 BJPS Popper Prize-winning article, “Robustness Analysis as Explanatory Reasoning,” as well as the recent monograph Bayesianism and Scientific Reasoning (Cambridge, 2022). David H. Glass is a senior lecturer in the School of Computing at Ulster University (UK). His research lies at the intersection of computer science, mathematics, and philosophy of science, and includes recent publications on explanatory reasoning in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science and International Journal of Approximate Reasoning.

Introduction Jonah N. Schupbach and David H. Glass Part 1: The Nature of Conjunctive Explanations 1. The Intricate Conjunction, Coexistence, Competition and Cooperation between Functional and Mechanistic Explanations Frank C. Keil 2. Multiple Patterns, Multiple Explanations Steve Petersen 3. Individual and Structural Explanation in Scientific and Folk Economics Samuel G. B. Johnson and Michiru Nagatsu Part 2: Reasoning about Conjunctive Explanations 4. The Role of Explanation in Epistemic Evaluation: Comparative vs. Non-Comparative Tomoji Shogenji 5. Conjunctive Explanations: A Coherentist Appraisal Stephan Hartmann and Borut Trpin 6. Conjunctive Explanation: Is the Explanatory Gain Worth the Cost? David H. Glass and Jonah N. Schupbach 7. On the Mutual Exclusivity of Competing Hypotheses Leah Henderson Part 3: The Psychology of Conjunctive Explanations 8. Best Explanations, Natural Concepts, and Optimal Design Igor Douven 9. Scientific and Religious Explanations, Together and Apart Telli Davoodi and Tania Lombrozo 10. When Competing Explanations Converge: Coronavirus as a Case Study for Why Scientific Explanations Coexist with Folk Explanations Andrew Shtulman