What Are the Pragmatics of Explanation?

摘要

An enticing view about explanation consists of two theses. First, there is the Relevance Thesis, the thesis that the truth of explanation sentences depends on a contextually selected relevance relation. The idea is that whether an utterance is true depends on what factors the context counts as relevant. Second, there is the Contrastivity Thesis, the thesis that the truth of explanation sentences depends on a contextually determined contrastive focus. This metalinguistic view is enticing, and elements of it have been defended by van Fraassen (1980), Woodward (1984), Schaffer (2005a; 2013), and others. Nevertheless, the enticing view is flawed; both the Contrastivity Thesis and the Relevance Thesis are mistaken.