Explanation and Pluralism

Abstract

How do the multitude of perspectives on explanation fit together, if at all? The “Modes of Explanation” conference was daring in the way it brought together scholars whose fields ranged from philosophy of science to narrative theory, crossed the analytic–continental divide in philosophy, and incorporated business practitioners interested in management and organization theory. One of the interesting outcomes in this book is Lissack and Graber’s proposal that the complex and conflicting discourse around explanation can be understood in terms of “concurrent but orthogonal” perspectives. For example, they suggest that scientific realism and pragmatic constructivism are not antithetical views but different models for the process of inquiry.