Title: Tailored Explanations
Abstract: Scientific explanations are, one might hope, objectively true and sufficient. But, clearly, different explanations are appropriate and satisfying for different individuals. Is this because truth is radically subjective? One more mundane reason is that different subjects already know different parts of the same objective story, so that each subject requires only the parts they are missing or mistaken about. Can we be more precise and nuanced about what would suffice for any given individual? I sketch a formal model for doing so. This involves two partially specified causal Bayesian networks, one representing the subject’s beliefs and the other representing the relevant objective truth. A sufficient explanation must provide an island of truth for the explanandum, separating it from the main. Several distinct types of correction may be required to the subject’s beliefs, beyond mere Bayesian updating. Thus, we can identify sets of corrections that will be both subjectively tailored and objectively adequate.
Objectivity2015 