There are two senses of *contrastive* explanation that are confused with each other too often. Consider we ask “Why did my friend buy a house?”. There are two types of contrast, one of which is at the conceptual core of explaining while the other is not, although the latter might be methodologically useful. The first […]

Introduction Science requires resources. This limits the number of research programs[1] that can be initiated and kept alive. Due to this, we have to make decisions concerning which research programs to pursue. This generates the problem of pursuitworthiness. We have to identify those research programs that are worthy of pursuit. On what criteria can the […]