A Dialogue on Explanation by C. Mantzavinos

Author:C. Mantzavinos
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783030058340
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

PHILIP: And the Christian explanatory game produced probably the most popular explanation of cosmogony as it is contained in the Book of Genesis65:

‘In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.’ And so on for the rest six days…

STUDENT: Compare these with the contemporary cosmological account of the emergence of the universe based on a big bang explanation. According to the general theory of relativity, gravity is not a force, but the curvature of space time. The range of gravity is infinite since it is a property of space time itself and the evolution of the universe is ultimately dictated by gravity. A set of differential equations relates the dynamic quantities in the universe and turns them back in time. Simulations on computers relate initial conditions of the universe to different outcomes aiming at representations of the kind of universe we live in. Earlier astronomers, most prominently Edwin Hubble, observed that neighbouring galaxies of the Milky Way galaxy are receding away—the more distant they are, the faster were they found to be moving away. In other words, recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from the earth. Reversing this expansion scenario back in time, the inference is drawn that if galaxies are moving rapidly apart now, they must have been denser—with more matter and energy per unit volume—in the past. Going back in time, the whole universe should converge to a point of infinite density and extremely high temperatures, and this should be the starting point of big bang. The universe itself should have been an infinitely dense point which expanded to its present size. The age of the universe according to this Big Bang explanation is estimated to be 13.73 billion years.

PHILIP: With all these examples the notion and function of an explanatory game have become much clearer. But I wonder whether this approach can entirely avoid posing and answering what you have called ‘the wrong question’, i.e. ‘what is an explanation?’

STUDENT: Have you heard me doing so?

PHILIP: No. But the issue is whether your purposefully avoiding it can be maintained to the end.

STUDENT: I think that we can speak and argue intelligibly on a great range of issues and problems based solely on implicitly shared understandings.

PHILIP: Sometimes, but not always, and probably not in this case.

STUDENT: Let me show you something. We have to walk a few steps up to the Temple of Poseidon. Here it is!

PHILIP: B y r o n !

STUDENT: He inscribed his name here, possibly during his first visit to Greece. An attempt to remain

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