Volume 80, 2006
Intelligence and the Philosophy of Mind
Stephen R. Grimm
Pages 237-244
The Need for Explanation in the Philosophy of Mind
A Case Study
Explanatory inquiry characteristically begins with a certain puzzlement about the world. But why do certain situations elicit our puzzlement (or curiosity) while others leave us, in some epistemically relevant sense, cold? Moreover, what exactly is involved in the move from a state of puzzlement to a state where one’s puzzlement is satisfied? In this paper I try to make sense of these questions by focusing on two case studies, one from the popular literature on string theory and one from recent debates in the philosophy of mind.