A fundamental research goal for Explainable AI (XAI) is to build models that are capable of reasoning through the generation of natural language explanations. However, the methodologies to design and evaluate explanation-based inference models are still poorly informed by theoretical accounts on the nature of explanation. As an attempt to provide an epistemologically grounded characterisation for XAI, this paper focuses on the scientific domain, aiming to bridge the gap between theory and practice on the notion of a scientific explanation. Specifically, the paper combines a detailed survey of the modern accounts of scientific explanation in Philosophy of Science with a systematic analysis of corpora of natural language explanations, clarifying the nature and function of explanatory arguments from both a top-down (categorical) and a bottom-up (corpus-based) perspective. Through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the presented study allows deriving the following main conclusions: (1) Explanations cannot be entirely characterised in terms of inductive or deductive arguments as their main function is to perform unification; (2) An explanation must cite causes and mechanisms that are responsible for the occurrence of the event to be explained; (3) While natural language explanations possess an intrinsic causal-mechanistic nature, they are not limited to causes and mechanisms, also accounting for pragmatic elements such as definitions, properties and taxonomic relations (4) Patterns of unification naturally emerge in corpora of explanations even if not intentionally modelled; (5) Unification is realised through a process of abstraction, whose function is to provide the inference substrate for subsuming the event to be explained under recurring patterns and high-level regularities.
翻译:可解释的AI(XAI)的基本研究目标是建立能够通过产生自然语言解释进行推理的模型;然而,设计和评价基于解释的推论模型的方法仍然缺乏关于解释性质的理论说明; 试图为XAI提供一种基于认知的定性特征,本文侧重于科学领域,目的是弥合科学解释概念理论和实践之间的差距; 具体地说,该文件将科学哲学科学解释现代解释的理论和实践的详细调查与对自然语言解释整体的系统分析结合起来,澄清从上至下(分类)和从下至上(基于公司)的角度解释解释性理论模型模型模型的本质和功能仍然不完全知情; 提出的研究报告侧重于科学领域,目的是弥合科学解释概念概念与实践之间的差距; 该文件将科学哲学理论理论理论与实践解释的现代解释与科学理论解释的现代解释结合起来; 自然语言解释从上至下至下至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至解释的解释性解释性解释的理论解释的解释性解释性解释的内至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上至上