Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-7sgmh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-24T06:53:08.834Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Deductive-Nomological Model of Probabilistic Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Peter Railton
Peter Railton*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It has been the dominant view that probabilistic explanations of particular facts must be inductive in character. I argue here that this view is mistaken, and that the aim of probabilistic explanation is not to demonstrate that the explanandum fact was nomically expectable, but to give an account of the chance mechanism(s) responsible for it. To this end, a deductive-nomological model of probabilistic explanation is developed and defended. Such a model has application only when the probabilities occurring in covering laws can be interpreted as measures of objective chance, expressing the strength of physical propensities. Unlike inductive models of probabilistic explanation, this deductive model stands in no need of troublesome requirements of maximal specificity or epistemic relativization.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 1978 , pp. 206 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1978

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

Footnotes

†

I would like to thank C. G. Hempel, Richard C. Jeffrey, and David Lewis for helpful criticisms of earlier drafts. I am especially indebted to David Lewis for the idea that a propensity interpretation of probability sits best with the account of probabilistic explanation given here. I have greatly benefited from discussions of related matters with Sam Scheffler and David Fair.

References

[1] Evans, R. D. The Atomic Nucleus. New York: McGraw Hill, 1965.Google Scholar
[2] Giere, R. N. “Objective Single-Case Probabilities and the Foundations of Statistics.” In Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Vol. IV. Edited by Suppes, P., et al. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1973.Google Scholar
[3] Hempel, C. G. “Aspects of Scientific Explanation.” In Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays. New York: Free Press, 1965.Google Scholar
[4] Hempel, C. G. “Maximal Specificity and Lawlikeness in Probabilistic Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 35 (1968): 116–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5] Jeffrey, R. C. “Statistical Explanation vs. Statistical Inference.” In Essays in Honor of C. G. Hempel. Edited by Rescher, N., et al. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1970.Google Scholar
[6] Salmon, W. C. “Statistical Explanation.” In Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. Edited by Salmon, W. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar