Joachim Frans studied philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and Ghent University. He is mainly puzzled by aspects of (scientific and mathematical) explanation and of non-justificatory aims in mathematical research. Consequently, his main research interest has been mathematical explanation. In 2017, he received a PhD at the University of Brussels. The focus of his PhD was the notion of explanatory proofs in mathematics. Currently he is investigating, as a post-doctoral fellow of the FWO, explanations in mathematics that go beyond the relation between proof and theorem.