Introduction: The Feeling of Having Understood
There is a distinctive sensation that accompanies a good explanation. The pieces seem to fall into place. Uncertainty recedes. The question that was pressing a moment ago loses its urgency.
That feeling is not incidental. It is one of the primary signals by which we judge explanatory success.
This post argues that the signal is unreliable.
Many explanations fail not because they are incorrect, but because they are too satisfying. They resolve the discomfort of not knowing by ending inquiry rather than deepening it.
1. Explanation as Relief
Explanation often functions as relief from uncertainty. Faced with complexity, contingency, or ambiguity, an explanation offers narrative, structure, and direction.
This is not a defect. Without some stabilisation, inquiry cannot proceed at all.
But relief becomes a problem when it is mistaken for understanding.
An explanation that feels complete can discourage further questioning even when it has not made the phenomenon more intelligible in its present relations.
2. The Difference Between Answering and Orienting
There is a crucial distinction between explanations that answer questions and explanations that orient inquiry.
Answering explanations aim to terminate a line of questioning. They identify a cause, a mechanism, or an origin and treat it as sufficient.
Orienting explanations, by contrast, clarify what kind of thing is being investigated, what relations matter, and what further questions are now meaningful to ask.
Much contemporary explanation prioritises answers at the expense of orientation.
3. Why Closure Feels Like Success
Explanatory closure feels like success because it reduces cognitive load. Once a phenomenon has been located within a familiar framework, the pressure to keep thinking eases.
This effect is amplified when explanations:
appeal to deep causes,
invoke authoritative domains,
or reach far into history.
The further away the explanation is placed, the harder it becomes to re-enter the phenomenon itself.
4. What Gets Lost When Inquiry Ends
When explanation ends too soon, several things are quietly lost:
the present conditions under which a phenomenon is intelligible,
the relations that sustain or transform it,
the possibility that it might be otherwise.
What remains is a description of how it came to be, standing in for an account of what it is.
Conclusion: Keeping Explanation Alive
This series begins from a simple suspicion: that explanation has been asked to do the wrong kind of work.
Rather than keeping inquiry alive, many explanations function to stop it. They answer questions that feel urgent while leaving the phenomenon itself underexamined.
In the next post, we will examine one of the most common ways this happens: the confusion of causal depth with ontological depth.
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