Paper 2 Assignment: Inferring and Explaining

This assignment will be in two parts. I want you to focus in part 1 on performing inferences to the best explanation of an event or phenomenon of your choice, and in part 2, explaining how they work. In your first paper I wanted you to prove that you could gather information effectively and incorporate it into an argument. The emphasis in this paper will not be on the research you do to gather your facts, but rather on the ways you explain those facts effectively. My goals are for you to get more practice using the techniques we’ve discussed and employed the last two weeks, and then to show that you can use secondary sources (the Einstein-Infeld excerpt, “Modes of inference,” “Causal asymmetry and explanation,” and “Narrative explanation”) to analyze the effectiveness of the techniques you have just practiced.

You have a great deal of freedom in what event or phenomenon you choose to explain: I can imagine you looking at the facts in a legal case, examining the details of a contest or sports match to see why one side won and the other lost, exploring a strange phenomenon that has given rise to many different conspiracy theories along with an “official explanation,” describing an interesting event in your own life, etc. etc. If you have an idea that captures your attention, pursue it! If you’re not sure it will work, run it by me and we can brainstorm.

The paper will be written in two parts. The structure should loosely follow this schema:

Part 1 (700-1200 words):

• Please divide this part into sections with headers, e.g., “Description,” “Causal Explanation,” “Narrative Explanation.”
• First describe the event plainly and objectively, laying out the facts clearly, quoting news sources if necessary, and avoiding explanation or commentary. Your model should be the scenarios in Exercises in Inference or Velleman’s “annals” or “chronicles” as opposed to “stories” or “narratives.”
• Then explain the event in two different ways (using two of these three: a causal model, a statistical relevance model, or a narrative model, i.e., a story). In this section of the paper, you will be performing abductive inference just as we did in “Exercises in Inference,” with the additional constraint that you will be reasoning toward particular kinds of explanation. Write for a general audience who hasn’t read the essays on explanation that you have. Your goal is, for example, to offer a causal explanation (using causal language and possibly causal maps) without talking about “causal models” or “counterfactual conditionals.” You can make natural laws or statistical principles or moral codes explicit or implicit in your explanations, but don’t refer to “rules” or the other steps of abduction here.

Part 2 (1000-1500 words):

• This part is a more like a typical argument essay with a thesis and topic sentences, quotations from the readings AND from your own part 1, and a consistent argument. Your purpose is to make the case that one of your explanations in part 1 is more successful than the other(s). Your thesis should state how you will achieve that—what your external criterion is, and your analysis should show the successes and failures of each explanation, ultimately favoring one. To be clear, you shouldn’t simply say that your narrative is better because it is emotional or your statistical relevance explanation is better because it is scientific: that’s a circular argument true by definition. Rather, imagine an external audience and purpose for these explanations and consider which would accomplish their goals better. Take your guiding question from van Fraassen: which explanation answers the implicit why question the best?
• To support your argument, analyze your processes of inference and your explanations using the technical terms and tools described in the reading for this unit. This is where I want to see the language of abduction and the models of explanation. I want you to demonstrate that you can use the terminology and underlying reasoning of inference and explanation in a purposeful argument.

Due dates:

• First drafts are due in class Thursday, October 15 for peer review workshops. Also upload them to Canvas. When you submit an electronic copy, please name the file <First nameLast initial_Paper2_draft1 or 2 or Final>. Rename your files as you revise so you keep a record of your revision process.
• Second drafts with revision commentary are due on Canvas by 11:59pm Sunday, October 18.
• Final drafts are due on Sunday, October 25 (by 11:59pm). Any handwritten revision materials can be given to me in class.