The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.)
The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.)
Learning Causes: Psychological Explanations of Causal Explanation^1
Minds and Machines
Explaining Disease: Correlations, Causes, and Mechanisms
Minds and Machines
Minds and Machines
Explanation in Scientists and Children
Minds and Machines
A conceptual and empirical framework for the social distribution of cognition: The case of memory
Cognitive Systems Research
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We introduce two notions–the shadows and the shallows of explanation–in opening up explanation to broader, interdisciplinary investigation. The “shadows of explanation” refer to pastphilosophical efforts to provide either a conceptual analysis ofexplanation or in some other way to pinpoint the essence of explanation.The “shallows of explanation” refer to the phenomenon of havingsurprisingly limited everyday, individual cognitive abilities when it comesto explanation. Explanations are ubiquitous, but they typically are notaccompanied by the depth that we might, prima facie, expect. We explain theexistence of the shadows and shallows of explanation in terms of there beinga theoretical abyss between explanation and richer, theoretical structuresthat are often attributed to people. We offer an account of the shallows, inparticular, both in terms of shorn-down, internal, mental machinery, and interms of an enriched, public symbolic environment, relative to the currentlydominant ways of thinking about cognition and the world.