An explanation is a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts.
This description may establish rules or laws, and may clarify the existing ones in relation to any objects, or phenomena examined. The components of an explanation can be implicit, and be interwoven with one another.
An explanation is often underpinned by an understanding that is represented by different media such as music, text, and graphics. Thus, an explanation is subjected to interpretation, and discussion.
In scientific research, explanation is one of the purposes of research, e.g., exploration and description. Explanation is a way to uncover new knowledge, and to report relationships among different aspects of studied phenomena. Explanations have varied explanatory power.
Read more about Explanation: Explanations and Arguments, Explanations and Justification, Types of Explanations
Famous quotes containing the word explanation:
“We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)
“How strange a scene is this in which we are such shifting figures, pictures, shadows. The mystery of our existence—I have no faith in any attempted explanation of it. It is all a dark, unfathomed profound.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.”
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)