Explaining explanation : essays in the philosophy of the special sciences / Lee McIntyre.

"Far from being inferior to physics, the special sciences are crucial to understanding what is distinctive about scientific explanation: that description is just as important as ontology and that having the right attitude toward empirical evidence is as necessary as having the right method. Explaining Explanation is a collection of Lee McIntyre's most significant philosophical essays from over the last twenty years. The principle areas of concern are the philosophy of social science and the philosophy of chemistry, but essays also cover more general problems such as under determination, explanatory exclusion, the accommodation-prediction debate, and laws in biological science. Despite the disparate themes of each essay--complexity, laws, explanation, prediction, reduction, supervenience, emergence, and redescription--they all converge through the lens of the special sciences, focusing on what it means to 'explain' in the sciences."-- Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface -- Introduction: what's so special about the special sciences? -- Philosophy of social science. Complexity and social scienctific laws -- Reduction, supervenience, and the autonomy of social scientific laws -- Prediction in the social sciences -- Davidson and social scientific laws -- Intentionality, pluralism, and redescription -- Redescription and descriptivism in the social sciences -- The dark ages of social science -- Philosophy of chemistry. The case for the philosophy of chemistry (with Eric Scerri) -- The emergence of the philosophy of chemistry -- The philosophy of chemistry: ten years later -- emergence and reduction in chemistry: ontological or epistemological concepts? -- General problems in scientific explanations. Complexity: a philosopher's reflections -- Accomodation, prediction, and confirmation -- Supervenience and explanatory exclusion -- Taking underdetermination seriously -- Problems in other sciences. Gould on laws in biological science -- Teaching the fallacy of conversion -- What can medicine teach the social sciences?