Agents as Difference Makers: A Response

Aku Visala explores two different contexts that seem to require conjunctive explanations. The first concerns neurophysical and reason-giving explanations for human action, while the second relates to scientific and religious explanations of events in the world. He demonstrates the explanatory inadequacies of reductionist and eliminativist approaches and thus argues persuasively for the need for two explanations rather than one. While a conjunctive explanation might be needed, Visala is left with the challenge of giving an account of how neurophysical and reason-giving explanations might relate to each other. To this end, he draws on influential work on interventionist accounts of causation and explanation. This approach has a lot going for it and it is good to see Visala's discussion of it in the context of scientific and religious explanations. In terms of science and religion, Visala provides a helpful discussion about how scientific and religious explanations might fit together, particularly focusing on the role of contrastive explanation.