WordNet

a statement that makes something comprehensible by describing the relevant structure or operation or circumstances etc.; "the explanation was very simple"; "I expected a brief account" (同)account
the act of explaining; making something plain or intelligible; "I heard his explanation of the accident"
thought that makes something comprehensible
serve as a means of expressing something; "The flower represents a young girl"
create an image or likeness of; "The painter represented his wife as a young girl" (同)interpret
take the place of or be parallel or equivalent to; "Because of the sound changes in the course of history, an h in Greek stands for an s in Latin" (同)stand_for, correspond
be a delegate or spokesperson for; represent somebodys interest or be a proxy or substitute for, as of politicians and office holders representing their constituents, or of a tenant representing other tenants in a housing dispute; "I represent the silent majority"
be representative or typical for; "This period is represented by Beethoven"
describe or present, usually with respect to a particular quality; "He represented this book as an example of the Russian 19th century novel"
point out or draw attention to in protest or remonstrance; "our parents represented to us the need for more caution"
an explanation of something that is not immediately obvious; "the edict was subject to many interpretations"; "he annoyed us with his interpreting of parables"; "often imitations are extended to provide a more accurate rendition of the childs intended m (同)interpreting, rendition, rendering
a mental representation of the meaning or significance of something (同)reading, version
an explanation that results from interpreting something; "the report included his interpretation of the forensic evidence"
a systematic interpretation or explanation (usually written) of a specific topic (同)expounding
(music) the section of a movement (especially in sonata form) where the major musical themes first occur
an account that sets forth the meaning or intent of a writing or discourse; "we would have understood the play better if there had been some initial exposition of the background"
a visual representation (a picture or diagram) that is used make some subject more pleasing or easier to understand
artwork that helps make something clear or attractive
supply with illustrations; "illustrate a book with drawings"
depict with an illustration

PrepTutorEJDIC

〈U〉〈C〉(…の)『説明』,解説,弁明《+『of』+『名』》 / 〈C〉(…の)説明(弁明)となる事(物)《+『of』(『for』)+『名』》
〈記号・文字・事物が〉…‘を'『表す』,象徴する / (記号・文字・事物によって)…‘を'表す・…‘を'『代表する』,‘の'代理をする / 〈絵画・彫刻などが〉…‘を'描写する,表現する / …‘を'(典型)である / 《『represent』+『名』+『as』(『to』『be』)+『名』(『形』)》(ある性質を持つものとして)…‘を'述べる(describe)
…‘を'再び贈る,再び差し出す / 〈劇など〉‘を'再演する
(…の)意味を明らかにすること,解明,説明《+『of』+『名』》 / (芸術作品・夢などの)解釈《+『of』+『名』》 / (音楽作品や劇の役割に一つの解釈を示す)演奏,演技《+『of』+『名』》 / 通訳
〈C〉『展示会』,『展覧会』;博覧会 / 〈U〉〈C〉説明,解説,叙述 / 〈U〉〈C〉(フーガ・ソナタなどの)主題の呈示部
〈C〉(説明などのための)『例』,実例(example) / 〈U〉(実例・図版・表などによる)(…の)説明,例証《+『of』+『名』》 / 〈C〉『挿絵』,説明図,図版,イラスト
…‘を'『説明する』,例証する / 〈本・雑誌など〉‘に'図解(挿絵)を入れる

Wikipedia preview

出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2015/10/24 08:59:19」(JST)

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An explanation is a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts.

This description may establish rules or laws, and may clarify the existing ones in relation to any objects, or phenomena examined. The components of an explanation can be implicit, and be interwoven with one another.

An explanation is often underpinned by an understanding that is represented by different media such as music, text, and graphics. Thus, an explanation is subjected to interpretation, and discussion.

In scientific research, explanation is one of several "purposes" for empirical research.^[1] ^[2] Explanation is a way to uncover new knowledge, and to report relationships among different aspects of studied phenomena. Explanation attempts to answer the "why" question. Explanations have varied explanatory power. The formal hypothesis is the theoretical tool used to verify explanation in empirical research. ^[3] ^[4]

Arguments

While arguments attempt to show that something is, will be, or should be the case, explanations try to show why or how something is or will be. If Fred and Joe address the issue of whether or not Fred's cat has fleas, Joe may state: "Fred, your cat has fleas. Observe the cat is scratching right now." Joe has made an argument that the cat has fleas. However, if Fred and Joe agree on the fact that the cat has fleas, they may further question why this is so and put forth an explanation: "The reason the cat has fleas is that the weather has been damp." The difference is that the attempt is not to settle whether or not some claim is true, but to show why it is true.

In this sense, arguments aim to contribute knowledge, whereas explanations aim to contribute understanding.

Arguments and explanations largely resemble each other in rhetorical use. This is the cause of much difficulty in thinking critically about claims. There are several reasons for this difficulty.

People often are not themselves clear on whether they are arguing for or explaining something.
The same types of words and phrases are used in presenting explanations and arguments.
The terms 'explain' or 'explanation,' et cetera are frequently used in arguments.
Explanations are often used within arguments and presented so as to serve as arguments.

Justification

Justification is the reason why someone properly holds a belief, the explanation as to why the belief is a true one, or an account of how one knows what one knows. In much the same way arguments and explanations may be confused with each other, so too may explanations and justifications. Statements which are justifications of some action take the form of arguments. For example attempts to justify a theft usually explain the motives (e.g., to feed a starving family).

It is important to be aware when an explanation is not a justification. A criminal profiler may offer an explanation of a suspect's behavior (e.g.; the person lost their job, the person got evicted, etc.). Such statements may help us understand why the person committed the crime, however an uncritical listener may believe the speaker is trying to gain sympathy for the person and his or her actions. It does not follow that a person proposing an explanation has any sympathy for the views or actions being explained. This is an important distinction because we need to be able to understand and explain terrible events and behavior in attempting to discourage it.

Types

There are many and varied events, objects, and facts which require explanation. So too, there are many different types of explanation. Aristotle recognized at least four types of explanation. Other types of explanation are Deductive-nomological, Functional, Historical, Psychological, Reductive, Teleological, Methodological explanations.

Meta-explanation

The notion of meta-explanation is important in behavioral scenarios that involve conflicting agents. In these scenarios, implicit of or explicit conflict can be caused by contradictory agents' interests, as communicated in their explanations for why they behaved in a particular way, by a lack of knowledge of the situation, or by a mixture of explanations of multiple factors. In many cases to assess the plausibility of explanations, one must analyze two following components and their interrelations: (1) explanation at the actual object level (explanation itself) and (2) explanation at the higher level (meta-explanation). Comparative analysis of the roles of both is conducted to assess the plausibility of how agents explain the scenarios of their interactions.^[5] Object-level explanation assesses the plausibility of individual claims by using a traditional approach to handle argumentative structure of a dialog. Meta-explanation links the structure of a current scenario with that of previously learned scenarios of multi-agent interaction. The scenario structure includes agents' communicative actions and argumentation defeat relations between the subjects of these actions. The data for both object-level and meta-explanation can be visually specified,and a plausibility of how agent behavior in a scenario can be visually explained. Meta-explanation in the form of machine learning of scenario structure can be augmented by conventional explanation by finding arguments in the form of defeasibility analysis of individual claims, to increase the accuracy of plausibility assessment.^[6]

A ratio between object-level and meta-explanation can be defined as the relative accuracy of plausibility assessment based on the former and latter sources. The groups of scenarios can then be clustered based on this ratio; hence, such a ratio is an important parameter of human behavior associated with explaining something to other humans.

External links

Explanation at PhilPapers
Scientific Explanation entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Theories of Explanation entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Explanation in several languages and meanings

UpToDate Contents

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English Journal

Effects of hydrogen bond on 2-aminopyridine and its derivatives complexes in methanol solvent.

Zhao J1, Song P2, Cui Y3, Liu X3, Sun S3, Hou S3, Ma F4.
Spectrochimica acta. Part A, Molecular and biomolecular spectroscopy.Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc.2014 Oct 15;131:282-7. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2014.04.116. Epub 2014 Apr 30.
In the present work, the time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) method was adopted to investigate the excited state hydrogen-bond dynamics of 2-aminopyridine monomer (2AP) and its derivatives in hydrogen donating methanol solvent. The calculated steady-state absorption and fluorescence sp
PMID 24835930

Full length amylin oligomer aggregation: insights from molecular dynamics simulations and implications for design of aggregation inhibitors.

Berhanu WM1, Masunov AE.
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Amyloid oligomers are considered to play essential roles in the pathogenesis of amyloid-related degenerative diseases including type 2 diabetes. Using an explicit solvent all atomic MD simulation, we explored the stability, conformational dynamics and association force of different single-layer mode
PMID 24028418

Paternal age of schizophrenia probands and endophenotypic differences from unaffected siblings.

Schmeidler J1, Lazzeroni LC2, Swerdlow NR3, Ferreira RP1, Braff DL4, Calkins ME5, Cadenhead KS3, Freedman R6, Green MF7, Greenwood TA3, Gur RE5, Gur RC5, Light GA4, Olincy A6, Nuechterlein KH8, Radant AD9, Seidman LJ10, Siever LJ11, Stone WS10, Sprock J3, Sugar CA7, Tsuang DW12, Tsuang MT3, Turetsky BI5, Silverman JM13.
Psychiatry research.Psychiatry Res.2014 Sep 30;219(1):67-71. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2014.05.035. Epub 2014 May 28.
We evaluated the discrepancy of endophenotypic performance between probands with schizophrenia and unaffected siblings by paternal age at proband birth, a possible marker for de novo mutations. Pairs of schizophrenia probands and unaffected siblings (N=220 pairs) were evaluated on 11 neuropsychologi
PMID 24913833

Association between C-reactive protein and depression: modulated by gender and mediated by body weight.

Liu Y1, Al-Sayegh H2, Jabrah R3, Wang W4, Yan F4, Zhang J5.
Psychiatry research.Psychiatry Res.2014 Sep 30;219(1):103-8. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2014.05.025. Epub 2014 May 22.
Literature on the relationship between depression and C-reactive protein (CRP), a biomarker of systematic inflammation, remains inconsistent. Insufficient adjustment for confounders and effect modifiers might be one explanation. We used the data of 6396 men and 6610 women aged 18 or older, who compl
PMID 24909972

Japanese Journal

SA問題・SA解説 : 正解一覧

月刊警察 32(12), 5-37,39-87, 2014-12
NAID 40020270363

環境デザインに関する国際教育プログラムの構築について（その2）/二つのワークショップの比較考察

川北健雄,岡村光浩,長濱伸貴,Takeo KAWAKITA,Mitsuhiro OKAMURA,Nobutaka NAGAHAMA
芸術工学2014, 2014-11-25
… The unique educational system of EMiLA as the common program of 5 schools from different countries in Europe is also investigated.In this paper, after the explanation of the two workshops mentioned above, a comparative analysis is made from the viewpoints of the administration and the relation to the educational systems. …
NAID 120005514935