Your guide to becoming an explanation specialist. You've done the hard work. Your product or service works beautifully - but something is missing. People just don't see the big idea - and it's keeping you from being successful. Your idea has an explanation problem. The Art of Explanation is for business people, educators and influencers who want to improve their explanation skills and start solving explanation problems. Author Lee LeFever is the founder of Common Craft, a company known around the world for making complex ideas easy to understand through short animated videos. He is your guide to helping audiences fall in love with your ideas, products or services through better explanations in any medium. You will learn to: Plan: Learn explanation basics, what causes them to fail and how to diagnose explanation problems. Package: Using simple elements, create an explanation strategy that builds confidence and motivates your audience. Present: Produce remarkable explanations with visuals and media. The Art of Explanation is your invitation to become an explanation specialist and see why explanation is now a fundamental skill for professionals.
When scientist investigate why things happen, they aim at giving an explanation. But what does a scientific explanation look like? In the first chapter (Theories of Scientific Explanation) of this book, the milestones in the debate on how to characterize scientific explanations are exposed. The second chapter (How to Study Scientific Explanation?) scrutinizes the working-method of three important philosophers of explanation, Carl Hempel, Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon and shows what went wrong. Next, it is the responsibility of current philosophers of explanation to go on where Hempel, Kitcher and Salmon failed. However, we should go on in a clever way. We call this clever way the pragmatic approach to scientific explanation and clarify briefly what this approach consists in. The third chapter (A Toolbox for Describing and Evaluating Explanatory Practices) elaborates the pragmatic approach by presenting a toolbox for analysing scientific explanation. In the last chapter (Examples of Descriptions and Evaluations of Explanatory Practices) the approach is illustrated with real-life examples of scientists aiming at explaining. This book can be used as a textbook for intermediate philosophy of science courses and is also valuable as “suggested reading” for introductory courses in philosophy of science. The way the book is set up makes it an excellent study and research guide for advanced (MA and PhD) students that work on the topic of scientific explanation. Finally, it is a handy source and reference book for senior researchers in the field of scientific explanations and – more generally – for all philosophers of science.
Explanation Points is a curated collection of disciplinary knowledge and advice for publishing in rhetoric and composition. Covering a variety of topics in an approachable, conversational tone, the book demonstrates how writing faculty from diverse career trajectories and institutions produce, prepare, edit, revise, and publish scholarship. Rhetoric and composition is a uniquely democratic field, made of a group of scholars who, rather than competing with one another, lift each other up and work together to move the field forward. This lively, engaging, story-anchored book offers advice from a range of authors—including emeritus faculty, prolific authors, and early career researchers. Organized by various stages in the writing and publishing process, Explanation Points presents the advice shared between colleagues, passed along from professor to student, or offered online in abbreviated tweets and updates. The best advice book on writing and publishing in the field, Explanation Points is a useful resource for rhetoric and composition scholars including faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students; writing center administrators, staff, and consultants; graduate pratica and seminars; writing workshop classes; and editors, associate editors, assistant editors, and other academic journal staff. Contributors: Tim Amidon, Chris Anson, Nancy G. Barron, Ellen Barton, Michael Baumann, Steve Bernhardt, Kristine L. Blair, David Blakesley, Lynn Z. Bloom, Marcia Bost, James Brown, Amber Buck, Rebecca Burnett, Joyce Carter, Kate Comer, Janice Cools, Marilyn Cooper, Craig Cotich, Ellen Cushman, Gabriel Cutrufello, Courtney Danforth, Sid Dobrin, William Duffy, Norbert Elliot, Jessica Enoch, Doug Eyman, Michael Faris, Jenn Fishman, Linda Flower, Brenda Glasscot, Laura Gonzales, Jeffrey T. Grabill, Laurie Gries, Bump Halbritter, Joseph Harris, Byron Hawk, Douglas Hesse, Troy Hicks, Bruce Horner, Asao Inoue, Darin L. Jensen, Erin Jensen, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Gesa E. Kirsch, Sarah Kornfield, Ashanka Kumari, Christina M. LaVecchia, Donna LeCourt, Barbara L’Eplattenier, Heather Lettner-Rust, Justin Lewis, Julie Lindquist, Tara Lockhart, Andrea Abernethy Lunsford, Katie Manthey, Lisa Mastrangelo, Ben McCorkle, Heidi McKee, Cruz Medina, Laura R. Micciche, Holly Middleton, Lilian Mina, Janine Morris, Joan Mullin, Kim Hensley Owens, Jason Palmeri, Mike Palmquist, Steve Parks, Juli Parrish, Staci Perryman-Clark, Mya Poe, Jacqueline Rhodes, Jeff Rice, Jim Ridolfo, Shirley K Rose, Stuart A. Selber, Jody Shipka, Naomi Silver, Ryan Skinnell, Trixie Long Smith, Kyle Stedman, Patrick Sullivan, Carrie Strand Tebeau, Christie Toth, John Trimbur, Chris Warnick, Kathleen Blake Yancey
A "superb debut"* novel--based on the story of the author's grandmother--following an aristocratic woman who abandons her family and her money in search of a life she can claim as her own. (*The Guardian)
This volume provides the first authoritative explication of metatheoretical principles in the construction and evaluation of social-psychological theories. Leading international authorities review the conceptual foundations of the field's most influential approaches, scrutinizing the range and limits of theories in various areas of inquiry. The chapters describe basic principles of logical inference, illustrate common fallacies in theoretical interpretations of empirical findings, and outline the unique contributions of different levels of analysis. An in-depth look at the philosophical foundations of theorizing in social psychology, the book will be of interest to any scholar or student interested in scientific explanations of social behavior.
This second edition of David-Hillel Ruben's influential and highly acclaimed book on the philosophy of explanation has been revised and expanded, and the author has made substantial changes in light of the extensive reviews the first edition received. Ruben's views on the place of laws in explanation has been refined and clarified. What is perhaps the central thesis of the book, his realist view of explanation, describing the way in which explanation depends on metaphysics, has been updated and extended and engages with some of the work in this area published since the book's first edition.
Inference to the Best Explanation is an unrivalled exposition of a theory of particular interest to students both of epistemology and the philosophy of science.
First Published in 1986. In the age of the computer, conjecture about things mechanical has naturally led to the question of whether machines can think. As the emphasis on Artificial Intelligence (AI) has grown rapidly, questions about machine intelligence have begun to have a certain urgency. The question we are concerned with in this book is: If we can find a set of processes that machines can slavishly follow, and if by so doing, these machines can come up with creative thoughts, what would that tell us about human beings? If the machine's procedure was adapted from a human procedure, that is, if all the machine was doing was what we know people are doing, would we abandon our inherent skepticism about the abilities of machines, or would we demystify our inherent admiration for things human? In a sense, these are the issues dealt with in this book. The author says in a sense because this book is no way a philosophical treatise. Rather it is an exercise in Artificial Intelligence and in Cognitive Science, it is an attempt to come to understand one of the most complex problems of mind by examining some of the mechanisms of mind: to define the apparatus that underlies our ability to think.
“An extraordinary story . . . of a fashionable creature who flits in and out of fairy tales and historical epochs . . Exquisite.” —The Wall Street Journal A Note of Explanation is a previously unknown work by iconic writer Vita Sackville-West. Written in 1922, it was recently rediscovered as a miniature book in Queen Mary’s dollhouse in Windsor Castle. Witty and stylish, the story recounts the antics of a time-traveling sprite who inhabits the dollhouse. This illustrated e-book edition presents the story for the first time since 1924. Lovers of literature and history will rejoice in this irresistible one-of-a-kind e-book.
