This paper presents a general account of scaffolding explanations that fits with previously recognized uses in cognitive science and evolutionary biology that can also be extended to other areas, such as AI and biochemistry. Scaffolding explanations are causal explanations that explain how a system realizes, maintains, or acquires a capacity/property by interacting with an arrangement of entities and activities external to the system. I show the potential of this general account by using it to interpret empirical work on the capacity of large language models for long-range reasoning. The general account also shows the ways in which scaffolding explanations differ from other basic types of causal explanations, such as etiological (e.g., causal history), constitutive (e.g., mechanistic), and developmental explanations. Scaffolding explanations have different explananda than etiological explanations, and unlike constitutive and developmental explanations, they are able to attribute the realized capacity/property to the system that interacts with the scaffold, instead of the constitutive whole which includes both the system and the scaffold. This means that scaffolding explanations are a unique type of causal explanation. However, there are cases where competing empirically adequate and internally coherent constitutive and/or developmental explanations can be offered. Using research on the evolution of multicellularity as a case study, I argue that, in at least some cases, there are pragmatic reasons for preferring the scaffolding explanation over these alternatives. This analysis shows that there are cases where pragmatics will play an essential role in philosophical work on scientific explanation.
The question of equivalence between levels of selection has been one of the most debated topics in evolutionary biology and philosophy of biology. Here I provide an analysis in terms of information. I argue that two hierarchical levels are equivalent only if their informational content overlaps perfectly; conversely, a level of description is indispensable only if it contains unique information not captured by alternative descriptions. I operationalize equivalence in terms of inter-translatability between descriptions and distinguish three relevant forms: state-space, kinematic, and dynamic equivalence. Using a minimal setup, I construct four descriptions by varying informational content—in particular, informational richness (coarse vs. fine)—and level of description (particle vs. collective). I examine the conditions under which descriptions at different levels can be equivalent. I show that some forms of equivalence can occur under a limited set of conditions. This information-based framework clarifies when claims of indispensability are warranted and offers a principled way to adjudicate the realist–conventionalist debate on levels of selection.
Contrary to most accounts of explanation that have focused on difference-making, several philosophers have recently proposed that information about irrelevant features can contribute to scientific explanations. Two key questions arise for this approach: (1) what does the irrelevance of these features uniquely contribute to scientific explanations—beyond the contributions of difference makers—and (2) which irrelevant features ought to be cited in an explanation. In this paper, I argue that what irrelevance information uniquely contributes is the ability to explain the unexpected stability of patterns across contexts in which different difference-makers are responsible for the explanandum. These cases also show that scientists’ expectations and current best theories play a crucial role in determining which irrelevance information ought to be included and which can be left implicit.
Biosystematists debate whether, and how, to include DNA sequence assertions in biological species definitions. In this paper the author distinguishes two ways to assert DNA sequences in species definitions: the alternational DNA sequence method and the DNA sequence consensus method. The author describes and explains the two methods and argues for using the alternational DNA sequence method because it is logical, requires no preliminary aligning of DNA sequences and no consensus-making, is useful for identifying individual specimens, and captures intra-species variation. On the other hand, DNA sequence consensus species defining is illogical, does require preliminary aligning of observed sequences and a consensus-making step, is not useful for identifying individual specimens, and does not capture intraspecies variation.
This paper examines how evidential standards are constructed, interpreted, and enforced in paleoanthropology and funerary archaeology, focusing on claims of deliberate burial practices in Homo naledi. We begin by tracing how criteria for identifying burials have been historically articulated within funerary archaeology. We then turn to the debate sparked by Berger and colleagues’ 2023 preprint, which claims intentional burial by H. naledi, analyzing the ensuing public peer review and critical responses—a snapshot of an ongoing discussion that offers a rich empirical terrain for philosophical analysis. We argue that, in its earlier stage, disagreement did not primarily concern the identification of relevant standards, but rather how such standards are conceptualized and applied—a phenomenon we believe is not an unusual feature of paleoanthropological debates. We distinguish between checklist-based and scaffolding-based construals of evidential standards: the former is primarily concerned with the collection of relevant types of data, while the latter focuses on the inferential architecture that connects data to the claims they are meant to support. We then show how critical assessments of H. naledi burial claims suggested failures of adherence under both accounts. We further extend our analysis to the arguments presented in the second preprint (published as the version of record in September 2025), emphasizing how they relate to the original debate. Finally, we show how a scaffolding-based construal of evidential standards comes with norms of adherence in the communication of science, and discuss their implications in high-visibility paleoanthropology.
