Order of Explanation: Having it Both Ways

ABSTRACT

Order‐of‐explanation objections say that some philosophical view implies because , when it's more natural to say that because ; and since such mirroring explanations are presumed to be incompatible, the targeted view must be in conflict with the intuitive explanation. I argue that order‐of‐explanation objections are weaker than they seem, focusing on two cases: functionalism/dispositionalism about mental states and Humeanism about laws of nature. Examining our ordinary practices of explanation, I identify two kinds of explanations, which I call conceptual and contextualizing explanations, which can be jointly compatible even when they mirror one another. This suggests a way of responding to order‐of‐explanation objections: if the targeted philosophical views offer conceptual explanations, and the intuitive explanations they mirror are contextualizing, then the order‐of‐explanation objections have no bite.