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Explanatory Unification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Philip Kitcher
Philip Kitcher*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Vermont
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Abstract

The official model of explanation proposed by the logical empiricists, the covering law model, is subject to familiar objections. The goal of the present paper is to explore an unofficial view of explanation which logical empiricists have sometimes suggested, the view of explanation as unification. I try to show that this view can be developed so as to provide insight into major episodes in the history of science, and that it can overcome some of the most serious difficulties besetting the covering law model.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , December 1981 , pp. 507 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

A distant ancestor of this paper was read to the Dartmouth College Philosophy Colloquium in the Spring of 1977. I would like to thank those who participated, especially Merrie Bergmann and Jim Moor, for their helpful suggestions. I am also grateful to two anonymous referees for Philosophy of Science whose extremely constructive criticisms have led to substantial improvements. Finally, I want to acknowledge the amount I have learned from the writing and the teaching of Peter Hempel. The present essay is a token payment on an enormous debt.

References

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