Mecanismo, propósito y exclusión explicativa

Resumo

A discussion and defense of “the principle of explanatory exclusion” —no event can be given more than one complete and independent explanation— this paper reopens a debate between N. Malcolm and A. Goldman: Can the same bit of behavior be given both a “purposive” (or “belief-desire” or “folk” psychological) and a “mechanistic” (or “cognitive” or “neuro-” scientific) explanation? Yes, the author holds, but at least one of the explanations will be dependent (reductively or by supervenience) on the other or incomplete in itself. Wanting an explanation for an event is an epistemic predicament, but having too many explanations is inherently unstable, generating a search for the relationship between the explanations. The *metaphysical* principle of explanatory exclusion is distinguished from the corresponding *epistemological* exclusion principle and the relationship between explanatory exclusion and explanatory realism considered. Finally, the article examines implications of explanatory exclusion for eliminativism and for Kuhn's theory of scientific “paradigms”.