Scientific explanation / edited by Philip Kitcher and Wesley C. Salmon.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kitcher, Philip, 1947-

Salmon, Wesley C.

Series:

Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science ; v. 13.

Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science ; v. 13

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--Methodology.

Science.

Science--Philosophy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (543 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c1989.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Issues concerning scientific explanation have been a focus of philosophical attention from Pre-Socratic times through the modern period. However, recent discussion really begins with the development of the Deductive-Nomological (DN) model. This model has had many advocates (including Popper 1935, 1959, Braithwaite 1953, Gardiner, 1959, Nagel 1961) but unquestionably the most detailed and influential statement is due to Carl Hempel (Hempel 1942, 1965, and Hempel & Oppenheim 1948). These papers and the reaction to them have structured subsequent discussion concerning scientific explanation to an

Contents:

Contents; Preface; Four Decades of Scientific Explanation; Explanation and Metaphysical Controversy; Explanation: In Search of the Rationale; Scientific Explanation: The Causes, Some of the Causes, and Nothing But the Causes; Pure, Mixed, and Spurious Probabilities and Their Significance for a Reductionist Theory of Causation; Capacities and Abstractions; The Causal Mechanical Model of Explanation; Explanation in the Social Sciences; Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure of the World; Contributors; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780816674633

0816674639

OCLC:

437188404