THE REASON WHY - A Theory of Philosophical Explanation

About the book THE REASON WHY - A Theory of Philosophical Explanation

Natural science and religion are both in the business of providing explanations, but the former unlike the latter lays a special claim to reason. It aspires to a rationality that the latter either forswears or is incapable of attaining. Yet what makes a rational explanation rational? The main thesis that I shall be advancing is that underlying a rational explanation are a number of fundamental ideas and principles which are all mutually complementary and interdependent, and provide an insight into how the world is actually made up. It is a logical requirement of a rational explanation that such ideas, and the principles that go with them, should form a self-supporting and self-explanatory analytical system. One such idea, and a vital component of the system, is the idea of self.
That the idea of self is implicated in the machinery of concepts that underlie a rational explanation is not all that surprising. Use of concepts alone already provides us with a clue. Thus a use of concepts manifestly presupposes the possibility of distinguishing between certain specimen items and the kinds, or species, which such items exemplify. But such a distinction can be made only by an agent who is able to think of him/herself as an example of a kind, and this involves an act of self-reference which is a definitional feature of selfhood.