Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-jtdwj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-29T23:06:55.863Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond Hempel: Reframing the Debate about Scientific Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2022

Fons Dewulf Open the ORCID record for Fons Dewulf [Opens in a new window]
Fons Dewulf*
Affiliation:
Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
*
Email: fons.dewulf@kuleuven.be
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I argue that Carl Hempel’s pioneering work on scientific explanation introduced an assumption that Hempel never motivated, namely, that explanation is an aim of science. Ever since, it has remained largely unquestioned in analytic philosophy of science. By expanding the historical scope of the debate on explanation to philosophers from the first half of the twentieth century, I show that the debate should include a critical reflection on Hempel’s assumption. This reflection includes two problems: how to motivate one’s position on the aims of scientific knowledge and how to decide which examples count as expressions of those aims.

Information

Type
Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 89 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 585 - 603
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Carnap, Rudolf. 1931. “Die physikalische Sprache als Universalsprache der Wissenschaft.” Erkenntnis 2 (1):432–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassirer, Ernst. 1910/1923. Substance and Function. Translated by William, C. Swabey and Marie, C. Swabey. Reprint, Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Dewulf, Fons. 2018a. “A Genealogy of Scientific Explanation: The Emergence of the Deductive-Nomological Model at the Intersection of German Historical and Scientific Philosophy.” PhD diss., Ghent University. https://lib.ugent.be/en/catalog/rug01:002405019?i=5&q=fons+dewulf.Google Scholar
Dewulf, Fons. 2018b. “Revisiting Hempel’s 1942 Contribution to Philosophy of History.” Journal of the History of Ideas 79 (3):385–406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duhem, Pierre. 1906/1991. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Translated by Wiener, Philip. Reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Frank, Philipp. 1949. Modern Science and Its Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Frank, Philipp. 1953. “Why Do Scientists and Philosophers So Often Disagree about the Merits of a New Theory?” In Readings in Philosophy of Science, edited by Wiener, Philip, 473–79. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Google Scholar
Hanson, Norwood Russell. 1959. “On the Symmetry between Explanation and Prediction.” Philosophical Review 68 (3):349–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl G. 1942. “The Function of General Laws in History.” Journal of Philosophy 39 (2):35–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl G. 1965. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G., and Oppenheim, Paul. 1936. Der Typusbegriff im lichte der Neuen Logik. Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff’s.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G., and Oppenheim, Paul. 1948. “Studies in the Logic of Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 15 (2):135–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hospers, John. 1946. “On Explanation.” Journal of Philosophy 43 (13):337–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mach, Ernst. 1893/1974. The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of Its Development. Translated by McCormack, Thomas J.. Reprint, La Salle: Open Court.Google Scholar
McCain, Kevin. 2016. The Nature of Scientific Knowledge: An Explanatory Approach. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyerson, Emile. 1908/1953. “Law and Causal Explanation.” In Readings in Philosophy of Science, edited by Wiener, Philip, 462–70. Reprint, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Google Scholar
Meyerson, Emile. 1911. “L’Histoire du Problème de la Connaissance: de M. E. Cassirer.” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 19 (1):100–129.Google Scholar
Meyerson, Emile. 1921/1991. Explanation in the Sciences. Trans. Loewenberg, Kate. Reprint, Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Reck, Erich. 2013. “Hempel, Carnap, and the Covering Law Model.” In The Berlin Group and the Philosophy of Logical Empiricism, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science 273, edited by Milkov, Nikolay and Peckhaus, Volker, 311–24. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reichenbach, Hans. 1930. “Kausalität und Wahrscheinlichkeit.” Erkenntnis 1 (1):158–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickert, Heinrich. 1929. Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung: eine logische Einleitung in die historischen Wissenschaften. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. 1912. “On the Notion of Cause.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 13 (1):1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. 1989. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. 2000. “Epilogue: The Spirit of Logical Empiricism: Carl G. Hempel’s Role in Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science.” In Science, Explanation, and Rationality: The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel, edited by James, H. Fretzer, 309–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schlick, Moritz. 1953. “Description and Explanation.” In Readings in Philosophy of Science, edited by Wiener, Philip, 470–73. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Google Scholar
Skow, Bradford. 2016. “Scientific Explanation.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science, edited by Humphreys, Paul, Chakravartty, Anjan, Morrison, Margaret, and Woody, Andrea, 524–44. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Strevens, Michael. 2008. Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 1980. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 2002. The Empirical Stance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 2009. “The Perils of Perrin, in the Hands of Philosophers.” Philosophical Studies 143 (1):5–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Mises, Richard. 1968. Positivism: A Study in Human Understanding. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
White, Morton G. 1943. “Historical Explanation.” Mind 52 (207):212–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1922/1981. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by Ogden, C. K.. Reprint, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Woodward, James. 2003. Making Things Happen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, James. 2017. “Scientific Explanation.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward, N. Zalta. Stanford: Stanford University Press. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/scientific-explanation/.Google Scholar