The Ontology Of Explanation: 5 The Missing Cut

The substitution of explanatory surrogates is not accidental. It becomes possible only once a specific structural relation has been lost: the cut between theory and phenomenon.

Explanation, in its classical sense, depends on this cut. A theory explains something only insofar as it is brought into relation with a phenomenon in a way that renders the phenomenon intelligible. The theory does not float free, nor does it collapse into the phenomenon. Explanation occurs across the relation.

When this cut is maintained, theory and phenomenon constrain one another. The theory must answer to what appears; the phenomenon must be situated within a construal that gives it sense. Neither side is sovereign. Explanation is the achievement of their alignment.

What we increasingly encounter instead is a situation in which the cut has quietly disappeared. Theory is no longer positioned as a construal of phenomena, but as a self-sufficient formal structure. Phenomena, in turn, are treated as mere instances of the theory — or worse, as dispensable illustrations of it.

Once this happens, explanation no longer has anywhere to occur. With no cut to bridge, there is only theory relating to itself. Derivations, simulations, and formal extensions proliferate, but they remain internal to the theoretical system. The appearance of explanatory power is generated without any explanatory relation actually being established.

This is why the surrogates discussed in the previous part function so effectively. Unification, elegance, prediction, and scale all operate entirely within theory. They do not require the awkward work of relating theory to phenomenon. They flourish precisely because the cut has gone missing.

The disappearance of the cut also explains the hostility toward interpretation. Interpretation is the practice by which a theory is reconnected to phenomena. When theory has come to regard itself as explanatorily complete, interpretation can only appear as an intrusion — an unnecessary and potentially destabilising addition.

At this point, explanation is no longer something that happens between theory and world. It is redefined as a property of the theory alone. A theory explains because it is internally powerful, not because it makes sense of anything that appears.

This redefinition is rarely stated explicitly. It is enacted in practice, stabilised by rhetoric, and defended by appeals to future understanding. But its consequence is decisive: explanation ceases to be an ontological achievement and becomes a formal accomplishment.

The missing cut is therefore not a minor omission. It is the condition under which explanation collapses into derivation, intelligibility becomes optional, and surrogates take over the explanatory role.

In the next part, we will examine why critique struggles to gain traction once the cut has been lost — and how explanatory language itself begins to drift in order to protect the resulting theoretical closure.