What is an Explanation? - Part 1
Table of Contents Part I — What Makes Something an Explanation? A Philosophical Perspective Part II — Why Explanations Feel Satisfying Psychological Aspects of Explanation Additional Examples from Cognitive Science Part III — Narrative, Identity, and Explanation Explanation vs. Story and Narrative Narrative and Identity-Protective Cognition Just-So Stories and the Barnum Effect Anchored Narratives Part IV — Explanation in a Social Environment Social Epistemology Part V — A Practical Evaluation Framework General Summary Sources Have you ever come across an explanation for a phenomenon, event, entity, occurrence, or fact and wondered how anyone could possibly find it satisfying? I increasingly find myself asking that question. It became especially noticeable while I was writing about the strategic use of bad arguments for propagandistic purposes. That post focused on argument, but I realized that much the same problem applies to explanation. Rather than simply cataloguing bad explana...