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Two Flagpoles are More Paradoxical than One

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Clark Glymour
Clark Glymour*
Affiliation:
University of Oklahoma
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Extract

The relation that holds between two singular sentences just if one of them can figure in an acceptable deductive nomological (DN) explanation of the other is not symmetric. As Sylvain Bromberger ([1]) pointed out some years ago, a sentence giving the height of a flagpole can figure in a DN explanation of a sentence specifying the length of the flagpole's shadow, but interchanging the explanans and the explanandum does not result in an explanation even though it may result in a valid argument. Recently Evan Jobe ([2]) has offered an ingenious account of such asymmetries, one which if successful would permit their characterization entirely within the framework of the DN model. The purpose of this note is to show that despite its attractiveness Jobe's idea will not work.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 118 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1978

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References

[1] Bromberger, S. “Why-Questions.” In University of Pittsburgh Series in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. LLI. Ed. R. Colodny. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966.Google Scholar
[2] Jobe, E. “A Puzzle Concerning DN Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 43 (1976): 542–549.10.1086/288711CrossRefGoogle Scholar