Everyday Metaphysical Explanation

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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/12/2021, SPi

Everyday Metaphysical Explanation

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/12/2021, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/12/2021, SPi

Everyday Metaphysical
Explanation
KRISTIE MILLER AND JAMES NORTON

1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/12/2021, SPi

3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198857303.001.0001
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/12/2021, SPi

Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1
1. Metaphysical Explanation 16
1.1 Introducing Metaphysical Explanation 16
1.2 What are Metaphysical Explanations? 22
1.3 Aspects of Everyday Metaphysical Explanation 24
1.3.1 The Worldly-Structure Aspect 25
1.3.2 The Psychological Aspect 30
1.4 Truth-Conditions, Worldly Structure, and Psychology 30
1.5 Propositions 38
1.6 What’s Next? 42
2. Desiderata for an Account of Everyday Metaphysical Explanation 43
2.1 Four Desiderata 43
2.2 Explain Practices 46
2.3 Correct Truth-Conditions 50
2.3.1 Evidence that Truth-Conditions Are Correct 51
2.4 Epistemic Tractability 62
2.5 Phenomenon-Posit Link 63
2.6 Motivating the Need for Empirical Research 63
2.7 What’s Next? 64
3. Empirical Evidence about Judgements about Causal and
Metaphysical Explanation 66
3.1 Formulating Hypotheses about Everyday Metaphysical Explanation 67
3.2 The Studies 75
3.2.1 Context-Sensitivity, Subjectivity, and Agent-Relativity 77
3.2.2 Context and the Direction of Explanation 83
3.2.3 Context, Asymmetry, and Disagreement Part I 93
3.2.4 Context, Asymmetry, and Disagreement Part II 99
3.3 Which Patterns and Practices Need Accommodation? 102
3.4 What’s Next? 109
4. Grounding-Based Accounts of Everyday Metaphysical Explanation 110
4.1 Grounding 111
4.2 Two Grounding-Based Accounts 111
4.3 Evaluating Strong and Weak Grounding-Based Accounts 114
4.3.1 Correct Truth-Conditions 115
4.3.2 Explain Practices 121
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vi 

4.3.3 Epistemic Tractability 124

4.3.4 Phenomenon-Posit Link 125
4.4 Summary 128
5. Three Accounts of R-facts 130
5.1 Candidate Alternative R-facts 131
5.2 The R-facts Are SD-facts 132
5.2.1 Interventionist Models 133
5.2.2 Logical Features of the Symmetric Dependence Relation 137
5.2.3 SD-Relations and Necessitation 144
5.3 R-facts Are N-facts 147
5.4 R-facts Are NCC-facts 151
5.5 The Objection from Non-Explanatory Instances 159
5.6 Summing Up Thus Far 161
5.7 A Worldly Approach to Everyday Metaphysical Explanation 162
5.8 Wrapping Up 167
6. Psychological Role P 168
6.1 Subjective Understanding 169
6.2 Objectual Interventional Representations 173
6.3 Representing Interventional Affordances 176
6.4 Extending P 179
6.4.1 Being Disposed to Subjectively Understand 179
6.4.2 Consistency 180
6.4.3 Objective Understanding 181
6.4.4 Communitarianism about Psychological Role P 183
6.5 What Is to Come 187
7. Tracking R-facts 189
7.1 Reliably Detecting R-facts 190
7.2 The Correlation Detection Mechanism 192
7.3 Reliably Detecting Dependence Relations 201
7.3.1 The Interventional Affordance Detection Mechanism 202
7.3.2 The Causal/Dependence Filtration Mechanism 207
7.3.3 Detecting the Direction of Ground 216
7.4 Wrapping Up 218
8. Tracking Subjective Understanding 219
8.1 Detecting Subjective Understanding in Ourselves 220
8.2 Detecting Subjective Understanding in Others 225
9. Evaluating the Three Accounts Part I 231
9.1 The Quartet 233
9.2 The Duet 236
9.3 The Trio 239
9.4 Non-Monotonicity 244
9.5 Quasi-Irreflexivity 247
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9.6 Non-Symmetry 250

9.7 A Paucity of Necessitation 252
9.8 Introducing the Interventional Conditions 255
9.9 The Interventional Conditions in Action 259
9.10 Taking Stock on Correct Truth-Conditions 269
10. Evaluating the Three Accounts Part II 271
10.1 Epistemic Tractability 271
10.2 Explain Practices 272
10.2.1 Strict Disagreement and Non-Strict Disagreement 272
10.2.2 Genuine Disagreement, Faulty Disagreement, and Genuine
Worldly Disagreement 274
10.2.3 Disagreement 277
10.2.4 Import 281
10.3 Phenomenon-Posit Link 283
10.4 Comparing the Three Accounts 285
10.5 Everyday Metaphysical Explanation 286
References 289
Index 303
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Acknowledgements

Lots of people have facilitated the completion of this book. First, we want to thank
our families, Gina and Reuben Norton, and David Braddon-Mitchell and Annie
and Freddie Braddon-Miller, all of whom have lived with this book, in one way or
another, for some time now. Watching someone sitting at a small silver box is not
very exciting, nor are missed weekends and evenings. Your support, patience, and
encouragement are greatly appreciated.
Second, we want to thank Andrew Latham, without whom chapter 3 of this
book would not have been possible. He was a vital member of the team who
designed and ran the studies.
Third, we want to thank the many people who gave us feedback on chapters of
the book. These include, in no particular order: David Braddon-Mitchell, Finnur
Dellsén, Andrew Latham, Michael Duncan, Patrick Dawson, Nathaniel Gan,
Naoyuki Kajimoto, Rory Torrens, Sam Baron, Jonathan Tallant, David Ingram,
Insa Lawler, Alastair Wilson, Mike Raven, Jordan Lee-tory, Lei Wang, and Hasti
Saeedi. Thanks also to Peter Momtchiloff for his encouragement and support of
this project, and to two anonymous readers for Oxford University Press for their
extensive and insightful feedback.
Kristie’s research is funded by the Australian Research Council (grants
FT170100262 and DP18010010). James’ research is funded by the Icelandic
Centre for Research (grant 195617-051).
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Figure 1 Freddie Braddon-Miller © David Braddon-Mitchell

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Figure 2 Annie Braddon-Miller © David Braddon-Mitchell

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Figure 3 Annie and Freddie © David Braddon-Mitchell

 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/12/2021, SPi

Introduction

Many areas of philosophy are in the business of explaining things, and hence of
explaining some things in terms of other things. Sometimes we are explaining the
way things are at one time, by appealing to the way things are at some other time,
and sometimes we are explaining the way things are at one time, in terms of some
other way they are that same time, and sometimes we are explaining one way
things are, atemporally, in terms of some other way they are, temporally or
atemporally. Often, when we are explaining the way things are at one time, by
appealing to the way things are at some other time, we are engaging in causal
explanation: we are explaining the way things are a later time—the effect—in
terms of some earlier cause. When we explain why Usain Bolt runs so fast, by
appealing (amongst other things) to his countless hours of training, we are
providing a causal explanation.
Not all explanations, however, are causal explanations. In general, explaining
the way things are at one time, in terms of some other way they are that same time,
or explaining the way things are, atemporally, in terms of some other way they are,
temporally or atemporally, is not a matter of providing a causal explanation.
Unsurprisingly, it’s controversial exactly which putative explanations are genuine
explanations, and controversial, amongst the genuine explanations (henceforth we
just call these explanations), which are truly non-causal. But various philosophers
have supposed that at least some of the following count as non-causal explan-
ations: our explaining that someone is in a particular mental state (like pleasure)
by appealing to their being in a certain brain state; or that the flag is red, because it
is maroon, or that Annie is a dog because she’s a labradoodle,¹ or that some action
is right because it maximises utility, or that a society is a just society because of the
way it arranges its institutions. Indeed, perhaps sometimes when we explain the
way things are at one time in terms of how they are at some other time, we are
nonetheless providing non-causal explanations. Arguably, when we explain that
some particular building is a church, because of some earlier event of

¹ Annie and Freddie are Kristie’s labradoodles. (They are also David’s Labradoodles. Thanks to
David Braddon-Mitchell for feedback on this issue.) There are pictures of Annie and Freddie in the
front matter to this book. That Freddie is a cream labradoodle and Annie is a black labradoodle are
important things to keep in mind while reading on. For the purposes of this book we will assume that
Annie and Freddie have some quite sophisticated cognitive capacities, and can ask and answer some
quite demanding explanatory questions. If it helps, you can think of them as small humans in fluffy
coats.

Everyday Metaphysical Explanation. Kristie Miller & James Norton, Oxford University Press.
© Kristie Miller & James Norton 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198857303.003.0001
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2 

consecration, we are providing an explanation that is at least in part non-causal.

Some non-causal explanations have become known as metaphysical explanations,
and they are the bread and butter of philosophy.
While these sorts of non-causal explanations are common in philosophy, they
are also common outside philosophy. When they are employed to articulate
connections between the subject matters of various scientific subdisciplines they
are sometimes known as inter-level explanations. So, when physicists account for
the macroscopic thermodynamic properties of a system (i.e. its temperature,
pressure, etc.) in terms of the distribution and motion of the microscopic particles
that make up the system, and biologists explain why there is some DNA by noting
that there exists a chain of nucleotides in a certain order, they are articulating the
kind of explanations in which we are interested.
The sorts of explanations in which we are interested can, in fact, be found pretty
much everywhere. They are not a recherché interest of contemporary philo-
sophers and scientists. When Annie explains to Freddie that the painting depicts
a horse because of the way the paints have been arranged on the canvas; when
Freddie explains to Annie that torturing a cat for fun is wrong because of the pain
caused to the cat; when Annie explains to Freddie that he is enjoying the kangaroo
chop because certain neurons are firing in his brain; when Phyllida explains to
Jack that there is a bicycle because some parts have been put together in a certain
way; when Jenny explains to Herbert that in order for society to be just, its
institutions need to be arranged in certain ways, they are all (arguably) engaging
in metaphysical explanation. Engaging in metaphysical explanation, then, is a
mainstay of explanatory discourse whereby we help one another to understand the
world. So while philosophers have, of late, started to seriously theorise about this
kind of explanation, and while this kind of explanation is especially prevalent
within philosophy itself, it is not by any means a uniquely philosophical notion.
This book focuses on that phenomenon: metaphysical explanation. This is, very
roughly, the phenomenon we take to underpin, or perhaps even be partly consti-
tuted by, our behaviours of seeking and providing explanations of a certain sort
(metaphysical), by appealing to certain sorts of structures in the world, in order to
bring it about that we come to understand, or find illumination, or gain new
capacities to intervene in the world.
As we see it, there are two distinct aspects to the phenomenon of metaphysical
explanation: a worldly aspect and a psychological aspect. Correspondingly, there
are accounts that target these different aspects of the phenomenon. What we call
worldly-structure accounts are accounts that focus only on spelling out what sorts
of worldly structures there need to be in order for there to be a metaphysical
explanation present.
The psychological aspect of the phenomenon is concerned with how subjects’
mental states must connect to the presence of that worldly structure if there are to
be metaphysical explanations. Psychological accounts of metaphysical explanation,
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 3

then, are ones on which in order to account for metaphysical explanation we need
to appeal to, inter alia, psychological states of subjects. However, this aspect has
received little attention. Indeed, almost all theorising about the phenomenon has
focussed on the development of worldly-structure accounts. There is thus much
work to be done articulating the psychological aspect of metaphysical explanation.
For instance, one might think that whether there is a metaphysical explanation
present will depend on what sort of question we are attempting to answer. For
instance, if Annie asks ‘why is the flower red?’ there are several sorts of why-
questions to which she might be seeking an answer, some of which are not well
answered by someone telling her that it is maroon. Instead, she might be asking
for an evolutionary explanation of why the flower is red, or a biological account of
how it is that the plant produces red flowers, or whether Uncle Andrew painted
the flower red, or asking for something else again.
So there is reason to think that which question one is attempting to answer is
going to partially determine whether the answer one gives is any kind of explan-
ation at all, and also, whether it is a metaphysical explanation. So for instance, one
might think that if Annie asks why the ball is orange and blue (it’s a chuckit) and
Freddie responds by telling her that the grass is green because the grass contains
chlorophyll, that this is not a metaphysical explanation for Annie, since it com-
pletely fails to answer the question she was asking. Freddie’s response was entirely
insensitive to Annie’s explanatory goals. We will call this element of metaphysical
explanation the goal-directed element.
One might also think that whether or not there is a metaphysical explanation
present for a subject is going to depend on broader features of the psychological
state of the subject, and not just her current goals. Perhaps, for instance, there’s a
perfectly good explanation to be had of why Freddie ate a burrito for lunch, by
citing the initial conditions of the universe and the laws of nature. But even if there
is, if you explain to Freddie his choice of lunch by reference to those initial
conditions and the laws of nature, he will most likely tell you that it is no
explanation, or, at best, is an exceedingly poor one. Moreover, Freddie might
insist that the problem with the candidate explanation is not that it is insensitive to
his explanatory goals—he wanted to learn about the cause(s) of his culinary
choice—but that it was insensitive some other relevant psychological states. To
know whether a candidate explanation counts as an explanation for a subject, we
need to know something about their psychological states. We need to know,
perhaps, whether the candidate explanation is in any way illuminating for the
subject in question. Does it seem to her as though one thing explains the other?
Does she understand one thing in terms of the other? Does it seem to her that she
has gained some new capacity to engage with, or intervene in, the world? We will
call this element of the phenomenon the concordance element.
To see how these two elements come apart, suppose that Annie’s goal is to work
out why the ocean trout is on the top of the high bench. Freddie explains to Annie
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that it is located there because the humans do not wish her to eat it. Freddie has, it
would seem, provided the right sort of information, given Annie’s why-question.
But Annie just does not understand how it could be that the humans do not want
her to eat the salmon, and so although her why-question is answered, there is no
concordance: for she does not understand the response, and cannot integrate it
into her wider framework for understanding the world.
Although fairly little has been said about either the goal-directed or the con-
cordance elements of metaphysical explanation, Thompson (2019) has recently
presented a view on which metaphysical explanations are answers to a certain
kind of why-question: a what-makes-it-the-case-that question. This account is
inspired by Van Fraassen’s (1980) pragmatic account of scientific explanation.
Van Fraassen notes that explanatory judgements are highly sensitive to which
contrast class is identified. Explaining why Freddie ate the sandwich (rather than
the muffin) is quite different from explaining why Freddie (rather than Annie) ate
the sandwich, and indeed, why Freddie ate the sandwich (rather than using it as a
rather ineffective hat). According to Thompson, whether an answer to a why-
question counts as a candidate metaphysical explanation depends on the back-
ground beliefs, theoretical commitments, explanatory goals, etc., of the question-
asker. In particular, for that subject the answer must be reasonable, proportionate,
intelligible, and relevant. For the candidate metaphysical explanation to, in add-
ition, be correct, the metaphysical explanation must report the obtaining of some
worldly structure.
Very roughly, we can characterise Thompson’s view as one on which meta-
physical explanations are correct answers to a certain kind of why-question. In
turn, an answer to a why-question is correct, just in case (i) the relevant worldly
structure obtains and (ii) the answer is an answer to the relevant question—it is
sensitive to the explanatory goals of the question-asker and (iii) the answer is
intelligible. (ii) maps on to our talk of goal-directed element of metaphysical
explanation, and (iii) maps on to our talk of the concordance element of meta-
physical explanation. While we have taken these to be elements of the psycho-
logical aspect of metaphysical explanation, Thompson talks of both (ii) and (iii) as
epistemic elements of the phenomenon, arguing that on her view “whether
something counts as an explanation or not plausibly depends (in part) on who
that explanation is for. In this sense, explanation is an epistemic phenomenon”
(2019:103). Here, we think she has in mind a broad sense of ‘epistemic’, according
to which an element of metaphysical explanation is epistemic just in case it is
connected to our goals and cognitive capacities.
In this book we will largely set to the side the goal-directed element of
metaphysical explanation. In doing so we assume that whether something counts
as a metaphysical explanation for a subject does not depend on whether or not it
answers any particular why-questions the subject has in mind (assuming they had
any in mind). So suppose, for instance, that Freddie is wondering why the door is
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 5

red, and that Freddie asks Annie, and she responds by telling Freddie that torture
is wrong because torture fails to maximise utility. Let’s suppose that Freddie has
the appropriate sorts of psychological states that concordance requires—he under-
stands (let’s suppose that’s what matters) what torture is, that it causes pain, and
hence fails to maximise utility, and he understands the connection between the
two. As we will ultimately put it, Freddie understands one fact (that torture is
wrong) in terms of the other (that torture fails to maximise utility) by representing
those facts, and representing there to obtain a certain connection between them.
So, on our view, this candidate metaphysical explanation meets the concordance
element of metaphysical explanation for Freddie. Then we will say that what
Annie said is a metaphysical explanation for Freddie (holding fixed that there is
some worldly relationship between torture’s being wrong and its causing pain, if
this is required). We will say this even though, quite clearly, what Annie said is not
an appropriate response to Freddie’s question.
We will suppose that the goal-directed element of metaphysical explanation is
best accommodated by appealing to questions about acts of metaphysical explan-
ation (more on this in chapter 1), and that it is only the concordance element that
need be accommodated by an account of metaphysical explanation itself. As a
result, we must allow that even once we have determined what metaphysically
explains what for a subject—where this may or may not have a psychological
aspect—there is the further question of which explanation is appropriate to offer
her, given her goals, in response to a particular explanation-seeking why-question.
Determining which utterance of a metaphysical explanation is appropriate, and
thus an act of metaphysical explanation, is something that will plausibly depend
on the psychological or epistemic characteristics of the explanation-seeking sub-
ject, as these are related to their particular explanation-seeking behaviour.
Developing an account that shows why Annie’s response to Freddie is, while a
metaphysical explanation, not appropriate and thus not an act of metaphysical
explanation, is not something we will attempt; for our focus is on questions about
the psychological aspect of metaphysical explanation itself, not acts thereof.
Quite generally though, it seems right to think that a particular utterance will
count as an act of metaphysical explanation just in case there is a metaphysical
explanation present for the subject and the utterance is appropriate: it answers
the why-question to which the subject wants an answer. If that is roughly right,
then we can be thought of as providing the beginnings of an account of when
something counts as an act of metaphysical explanation: namely, the conditions
under which the proposition uttered is a metaphysical explanation. We leave it to
others to fill in the remaining details about when uttering such a proposition is
appropriate.
Henceforth, then, when we talk about the psychological aspect of metaphysical
explanation, it is only the concordance element of metaphysical explanation that
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6 

we will have in mind. We will reflect on the goal-directed element of metaphysical

explanation only insofar as we are discussing acts of metaphysical explanation.
This book attempts to spell out a psychological account of metaphysical
explanation, appealing, inter alia, to psychological states of subjects in order to
articulate the concordance element of the phenomenon. However, our account
does not appeal only to psychological states (call any such view a strict psycho-
logical account). Instead, we will seek to provide an account of (i) what worldly
structure must obtain for a metaphysical explanation to obtain at all, and (ii) what
relations that structure must bear to the minds of subjects in order for a meta-
physical explanation to obtain for those subjects. This is to provide what we call a
complete psychological account: complete because nothing more is required, and
psychological because it requires not only that there is some worldly structure
present but also that the subject have certain psychological states (perhaps in
response to that worldly structure).
Moving on, theorising about the different aspects of metaphysical explanation
can be done in the service of quite different aims. As such, we can distinguish two
rather different projects with which one might engage. One of these is the project
of articulating and accounting for what we will call a philosophical notion of
metaphysical explanation. The other is a project of articulating and accounting for
what we will call an everyday notion of metaphysical explanation.
This is a book about the everyday notion of metaphysical explanation, or, as we
will call it, everyday metaphysical explanation. What is everyday metaphysical
explanation? It is the notion of metaphysical explanation that non-philosophers
deploy, and which is typically manifested in ordinary, everyday situations in
which we ask for, and offer, metaphysical explanations: that is, the particular
sort of non-causal explanation on which we are focussed. So, for instance, when
Freddie asks ‘why is a doctor’s appointment occurring?’ and Annie replies
‘because the patient and the doctor are in a room discussing symptoms, diagnosis,
treatment, etc.’, this is a putative example of an everyday metaphysical explan-
ation. When Freddie asks ‘why did I lose this game of bitey-face?’ and Annie
replies ‘because your face is in my mouth’, that is a putative example of an
everyday metaphysical explanation. When Freddie asks ‘why am I feeling so
stressed?’ and Annie replies ‘because your cortisol levels are very high’, that is a
putative example of an everyday metaphysical explanation.
These are fairly obvious and intuitive putative examples of everyday metaphys-
ical explanations: they are the sorts of explanations that we all, non-philosophers
included, ask for, and receive, in ordinary situations. It is this ordinary notion of
metaphysical explanation—the one that we all employ—that is the subject of this
book. To say that we are interested in the everyday notion of metaphysical
explanation is not to say, however, that we are only interested in the sorts of
ordinary contexts in which we tend to ask for and offer such explanations. For
instance, consider the following examples that one frequently finds in
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philosophical discussion. (We use an italicised ‘because’ in what follows, to

distinguish purported cases of metaphysical explanation from purported cases
of other kinds of explanation (such as causal explanation)).

A. The flower is red because the flower is maroon.

B. The painting depicts a cow because of the arrangement of colours on the canvas.
C. Torturing this cat for fun is wrong because it fails to maximise utility.
D. Bert is in mental state M because he is in brain state B.
E. The bicycle exists because of the existence and arrangement of the wheels,
spokes, handlebars, etc.
F. The set {Diogenes} exists because Diogenes exists.
G. The proposition <Diogenes exists> is true because Diogenes exists.
H. God loves X because X is good.
I. Building B is a church because at some earlier time, B was consecrated.

Arguably, a good many of A to I are not ‘everyday’ cases of metaphysical

explanation. It is rare for non-philosophers to worry about whether a set exists
because its members do, or whether a proposition is true because some object
exists. One might think something similar about A and E. Hence, one might think,
these are not candidates to be everyday metaphysical explanations. Not so.
Everyday metaphysical explanation is that notion which we, non-philosophers
included, use in everyday life. Everyday metaphysical explanations need not,
however, occur only in everyday situations. We can (and indeed in this book we
do) ask ordinary folk (i.e. non-philosophers) to make judgements about cases
using their ordinary, everyday, notion of metaphysical explanation, where the
cases in question are not themselves ‘everyday’. There is, of course, nothing very
odd about this. We often try to explicate a particular notion by getting people to
use that notion in a range of circumstances, some of which are not ordinary,
everyday circumstances. Is the wet potable stuff that falls from the skies in some
counterfactual world water? Is a fluffy labradoodle-like object that evolved from
an ancient elephant, a dog? Do you have free will if a nefarious neuroscientist is
poised to prevent you from performing alternative actions? We take cases like A to
I to be putative, or candidate, everyday metaphysical explanations, because
although very few people ordinarily ask whether the set {Diogenes} exists because
Diogenes exists, we can ask non-philosophers to employ their everyday concept of
metaphysical explanation to answer that question, and more besides.
Thus we do not think that everyday metaphysical explanations are confined to
those explanations that we request and provide in everyday situations. Rather, we
take everyday metaphysical explanations to be those things, whatever they are,
that we, collectively, are tracking with our judgements about what metaphysically
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