Metaphysical Explanation
Our understanding of the world is mediated through explanations. I'm in pain because I just kicked the table leg. The artwork is beautiful because the artist is very talented. But these somewhat familiar causal/scientific explanations are not the only kinds of explanation we give. My being in pain may also be explained with reference to my being in a particular brain state and the artwork s beauty can be explained in terms of its composition. These are so-called metaphysical explanations which, rather than explaining a certain effect with reference to its cause, take you from what is less to what is more fundamental; from what depends for its existence on something else, to that on which its existence is grounded. It is a kind of explanation you find both in- and outside of philosophy, yet which has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. As a consequence, it is a kind of explanation which nature and application is relatively speaking ill-understood, a circumstance which threatens its justified use in theory evaluation and theory comparison. In this project we aim to rectify this unfortunate situation by thoroughly investigating the nature of metaphysical explanation, thereby securing it well-justified use in both philosophical and scientific practice.
Final report
Final Report: P-16-0541:1
Aim and development:
This project’s stated aim was to investigate the nature of metaphysical explanation by investigating: (i) its relationship to, and the nature of, whatever worldly relations (including but not limited to so-called grounding relations) it tracks; (ii) the nature of the tracking relation – the relation in which the metaphysical explanation is supposed to stand to whatever worldly relations it is ‘about’; (iii) the (formal and other) properties of metaphysical explanation; (iv) how, and to what extent, metaphysical explanation is epistemically, conceptually, and/or cognitively conditioned; (v) if, why, and how metaphysical explanation must come to an end. The output of this project shows that we have managed to live up to those aims.
As it developed, the project also came to focus on issues not explicitly set out in our original application. These included a study of metaphysical explanations as a kind of explanation. In particular, we found that considering how the type of explanation metaphysical explanation is relates to other types of explanations, including causal and scientific explanations, could help shed light on its peculiar nature. This included investigating if and to what extent metaphysical explanation can be understood in analogy to how scientific explanation has been variably understood in the literature: as a kind of deductive nomological explanation, in pragmatic terms, or in unificationist terms. During the final stages of the project, we also considered various applications to which metaphysical explanations can and have been put, including in the natural sciences, the social sciences, as well as in e.g. the philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of religion.
Execution:
The project was led and organized by professor Anna-Sofia Maurin. All research questions were pursued in parallel, and research was conducted both individually by the researchers financed in the project and in smaller as well as larger groups, including also researchers in different ways tied to the project – as members of its scientific advisory board, as guests (1-5 months) at the University of Gothenburg (stays for which we got additional funding from various sources), and/or as researchers invited to our workshops/conferences, speakers at one of our biweekly research group meetings, or as lecturers in graduate courses organized by the project group on the project's theme. The members of our research group also cooperated on the writing a Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on metaphysical explanation (submitted) and the organization of a total of six workshops and 3 conferences on the project’s theme
The project’s three most important results
• A deepened understanding of metaphysical explanation as something important, fruitful and, not least, distinctive (a distinctive type of explanation as well as a type of explanation whose nature should be considered in separation from the nature of e.g. grounding - with which it was previously often conflated), worthy of its own research program.
• The building of a strong international network of researchers, able to continue the carrying out of this research program in the years to come.
• The identification of and research on the role metaphysical explanation, properly understood, can and does play in e.g., natural science (cf. our cooperation with Alastair Wilson and his ERC-project on metaphysical explanation in physics), social science, as well as in e.g., the philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. This is where we think the research front has now moved (which means that this result overlaps with what we think is one kind of important new research question our project has engendered (below)).
New research questions:
The project has opened the way for several, we think potentially very fruitful, avenues of research. Here are some of the research questions which currently interest the members of our research group (examples could of course be multiplied):
• How should we think about metaphysical explanation in the social world and for the social sciences?
• What are the most fruitful anti-realist conceptions of metaphysical explanation?
• Are antirealist conceptions of metaphysical explanation more plausible for some domains of discourse (e.g. social explanation) than for others?
• If metaphysical explanation is realist, does this imply a levelled conception of reality, or is it compatible with understanding the underlying reality as ‘flat’?
• What role does first-order metaphysics play for our ability to evaluate and compare metaphysical explanations?
• What form could scepticism about metaphysical explanation take?
Research cooperation:
As mentioned, this has been a project characterized by lively cooperation, both between members of the research group and between members of our group and other researchers more loosely tied to it. Activities have included (for more detailed information, see the project website (link at the end of this document), under the tab "events"):
• 5 workshops on the project’s theme (featuring members of our research group as well as invited guests).
• 1 workshop co-organized with Alastair Wilson and his ERC project on metaphysical explanation in physics (in Birmingham).
• 3 conferences (all 2-day conferences with invited guests; our final conference also included a call for papers).
• Regular meetings of members of our research group, including meetings where we co-authored, first a book proposal and then an encyclopedia entry on metaphysical explanation.*
• Shorter research stays by members of our scientific advisory board (Einar Bohn (Adger U): May 2017, Darragh Byrne (Birmingham): Spring 2018, Ricki Bliss (Lehigh U): Oct 2018, Kelly Trogdon (Virginia Tech): Fall 2018). While visiting with us, these researchers gave talks, participated in meetings and workshops, gave courses, and cooperated on papers with members of our research group.
• Invited talks by Dan Marshall (Lingnan University), Uriah Kriegel (CNRS/Jean Nicod, Paris), and Dai Heide (Simon Fraser University).
• Two courses (for doctoral and masters students), one on "metaphysical explanation" (led by Anna-Sofia Maurin och Daniel Giberman (member of the project's scientific advisory board)), and one on explanation, regress, and fundamentism ("God(s) and fundamentality") (led by Ricki Bliss (member of the project's scientific advisory board)).
* The group first decided to try to coauthor a book on metaphysical explanation. We therefore put together a book proposal which we submitted, among other places to Routledge. Routledge did express some interest in publishing the book. However, when they finally got back to us we had already submitted a proposal to the editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to coauthor an entry, also on metaphysical explanation. When that proposal was accepted, we decided that we could only go ahead with one of our options in the time allotted, and that publishing an entry in SEP would have bigger impact on subsequent debate. We therefore opted for this option. Our manuscript for that entry was submitted October 2020.
Dissemination of results:
The results of our research were disseminated through publication of peer-reviewed articles, chapters in edited volumes, invited talks at research seminars, conferences and workshops, as well as the activities organized by the group, listed above.
All articles published in international peer-reviewed journals are open access, in line with the instructions given to us by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. A fair amount of the texts published in edited volumes is also publicly available in one way or another (see the list of publications for links).
Apart from presentations at events organized by the project, members of the group have given invited talks at workshops, conferences, and departmental colloquia in Europe (Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden), the UK, the US, China, and Hong Kong. We have chosen not to list those talks here, but see the project website (under the tab "outputs") and/or the research group members' personal webpages for more information. Links below.
Link to project webpage: https://metaphysicalexplanation.wordpress.com/
Links to the members of the research group's personal webpages:
Andrew Brenner: https://sites.google.com/site/andrewtbrenner/home
Anna-Sofia Maurin: https://annasofiamaurin.com/
Alexander Skiles: https://alexanderjskiles.weebly.com/
Robin Stenwall: https://www.fil.lu.se/en/person/RobinStenwall/
Naomi Thompson: https://nmcthompson.wordpress.com/
Aim and development:
This project’s stated aim was to investigate the nature of metaphysical explanation by investigating: (i) its relationship to, and the nature of, whatever worldly relations (including but not limited to so-called grounding relations) it tracks; (ii) the nature of the tracking relation – the relation in which the metaphysical explanation is supposed to stand to whatever worldly relations it is ‘about’; (iii) the (formal and other) properties of metaphysical explanation; (iv) how, and to what extent, metaphysical explanation is epistemically, conceptually, and/or cognitively conditioned; (v) if, why, and how metaphysical explanation must come to an end. The output of this project shows that we have managed to live up to those aims.
As it developed, the project also came to focus on issues not explicitly set out in our original application. These included a study of metaphysical explanations as a kind of explanation. In particular, we found that considering how the type of explanation metaphysical explanation is relates to other types of explanations, including causal and scientific explanations, could help shed light on its peculiar nature. This included investigating if and to what extent metaphysical explanation can be understood in analogy to how scientific explanation has been variably understood in the literature: as a kind of deductive nomological explanation, in pragmatic terms, or in unificationist terms. During the final stages of the project, we also considered various applications to which metaphysical explanations can and have been put, including in the natural sciences, the social sciences, as well as in e.g. the philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of religion.
Execution:
The project was led and organized by professor Anna-Sofia Maurin. All research questions were pursued in parallel, and research was conducted both individually by the researchers financed in the project and in smaller as well as larger groups, including also researchers in different ways tied to the project – as members of its scientific advisory board, as guests (1-5 months) at the University of Gothenburg (stays for which we got additional funding from various sources), and/or as researchers invited to our workshops/conferences, speakers at one of our biweekly research group meetings, or as lecturers in graduate courses organized by the project group on the project's theme. The members of our research group also cooperated on the writing a Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on metaphysical explanation (submitted) and the organization of a total of six workshops and 3 conferences on the project’s theme
The project’s three most important results
• A deepened understanding of metaphysical explanation as something important, fruitful and, not least, distinctive (a distinctive type of explanation as well as a type of explanation whose nature should be considered in separation from the nature of e.g. grounding - with which it was previously often conflated), worthy of its own research program.
• The building of a strong international network of researchers, able to continue the carrying out of this research program in the years to come.
• The identification of and research on the role metaphysical explanation, properly understood, can and does play in e.g., natural science (cf. our cooperation with Alastair Wilson and his ERC-project on metaphysical explanation in physics), social science, as well as in e.g., the philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. This is where we think the research front has now moved (which means that this result overlaps with what we think is one kind of important new research question our project has engendered (below)).
New research questions:
The project has opened the way for several, we think potentially very fruitful, avenues of research. Here are some of the research questions which currently interest the members of our research group (examples could of course be multiplied):
• How should we think about metaphysical explanation in the social world and for the social sciences?
• What are the most fruitful anti-realist conceptions of metaphysical explanation?
• Are antirealist conceptions of metaphysical explanation more plausible for some domains of discourse (e.g. social explanation) than for others?
• If metaphysical explanation is realist, does this imply a levelled conception of reality, or is it compatible with understanding the underlying reality as ‘flat’?
• What role does first-order metaphysics play for our ability to evaluate and compare metaphysical explanations?
• What form could scepticism about metaphysical explanation take?
Research cooperation:
As mentioned, this has been a project characterized by lively cooperation, both between members of the research group and between members of our group and other researchers more loosely tied to it. Activities have included (for more detailed information, see the project website (link at the end of this document), under the tab "events"):
• 5 workshops on the project’s theme (featuring members of our research group as well as invited guests).
• 1 workshop co-organized with Alastair Wilson and his ERC project on metaphysical explanation in physics (in Birmingham).
• 3 conferences (all 2-day conferences with invited guests; our final conference also included a call for papers).
• Regular meetings of members of our research group, including meetings where we co-authored, first a book proposal and then an encyclopedia entry on metaphysical explanation.*
• Shorter research stays by members of our scientific advisory board (Einar Bohn (Adger U): May 2017, Darragh Byrne (Birmingham): Spring 2018, Ricki Bliss (Lehigh U): Oct 2018, Kelly Trogdon (Virginia Tech): Fall 2018). While visiting with us, these researchers gave talks, participated in meetings and workshops, gave courses, and cooperated on papers with members of our research group.
• Invited talks by Dan Marshall (Lingnan University), Uriah Kriegel (CNRS/Jean Nicod, Paris), and Dai Heide (Simon Fraser University).
• Two courses (for doctoral and masters students), one on "metaphysical explanation" (led by Anna-Sofia Maurin och Daniel Giberman (member of the project's scientific advisory board)), and one on explanation, regress, and fundamentism ("God(s) and fundamentality") (led by Ricki Bliss (member of the project's scientific advisory board)).
* The group first decided to try to coauthor a book on metaphysical explanation. We therefore put together a book proposal which we submitted, among other places to Routledge. Routledge did express some interest in publishing the book. However, when they finally got back to us we had already submitted a proposal to the editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to coauthor an entry, also on metaphysical explanation. When that proposal was accepted, we decided that we could only go ahead with one of our options in the time allotted, and that publishing an entry in SEP would have bigger impact on subsequent debate. We therefore opted for this option. Our manuscript for that entry was submitted October 2020.
Dissemination of results:
The results of our research were disseminated through publication of peer-reviewed articles, chapters in edited volumes, invited talks at research seminars, conferences and workshops, as well as the activities organized by the group, listed above.
All articles published in international peer-reviewed journals are open access, in line with the instructions given to us by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. A fair amount of the texts published in edited volumes is also publicly available in one way or another (see the list of publications for links).
Apart from presentations at events organized by the project, members of the group have given invited talks at workshops, conferences, and departmental colloquia in Europe (Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden), the UK, the US, China, and Hong Kong. We have chosen not to list those talks here, but see the project website (under the tab "outputs") and/or the research group members' personal webpages for more information. Links below.
Link to project webpage: https://metaphysicalexplanation.wordpress.com/
Links to the members of the research group's personal webpages:
Andrew Brenner: https://sites.google.com/site/andrewtbrenner/home
Anna-Sofia Maurin: https://annasofiamaurin.com/
Alexander Skiles: https://alexanderjskiles.weebly.com/
Robin Stenwall: https://www.fil.lu.se/en/person/RobinStenwall/
Naomi Thompson: https://nmcthompson.wordpress.com/