A normative account of the need for explanation

Although explanation is a central topic in the philosophy of science and several important models of scientific explanation have been developed and widely discussed, there is one issue concerning explanation that has drawn very little attention, namely, why some phenomena1 need explanation while some do not. Some may think that any phenomenon that has not been explained needs explanation. Others may think that if we divide (heretofore unexplained) phenomena into those that need explanation and those that do not, it is merely because we are puzzled by, or curious about, the former phenomena but not the latter. According to this line of thinking, the question of why some phenomena need explanation while some do not is a psychological question in disguise: the question is in fact why some people are puzzled 2 by some, but not all, phenomena and want to have an explanation of them. In this paper we will argue that the distinction between phenomena that need explanation and those that do not need one is philosophical, not psychological, because the distinction can be drawn normatively. We will propose a normative account of the need for explanation.