Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:52:50.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Philip Kitcher and wesley c. Salmon, (eds.), Scientific Explanation; and Wesley C. Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

James H. Fetzer*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota, Duluth

Extract

Philip Kitcher and Wesley C. Salmon have edited an important anthology of new papers on scientific explanation, a central problem—possibly the central problem—in the theory of science (Kitcher and Salmon 1989). Their collection begins with a comprehensive essay by Salmon that attempts to trace the development of work on this issue from Hempel and Oppenheim (1948) to the present. The University of Minnesota Press has published this article as a separate volume (Salmon 1990), which it is promoting as “a definitive introduction” to this area of inquiry. Apart from its preface and indices, the Salmon volume is identical with the original essay.

Type
Critical Notice
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 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.)

Footnotes

I would like to express appreciation to Paul Humphreys for his comments and to an anonymous referee for this journal for perceptive criticism.

References

Achinstein, P. (1977), “What is an Explanation?”, American Philosophical Quarterly 14: 116.Google Scholar
Coffa, J. A. (1973), Foundations of Inductive Explanation. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.Google Scholar
Coffa, J. A. (1977), “Probabilities: Reasonable or True?”, Philosophy of Science 44: 269287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eells, E. (1983), “Objective Probability Theory Theory”, Synthese 57: 387422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. (1974), “A Single Case Propensity Theory of Explanation”, Synthese 28: 171198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. (1981), Scientific Knowledge: Causation, Explanation, and Corroboration. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. (1983), “Probability and Objectivity in Deterministic and Indeterministic Situations”, Synthese 57: 367386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. (1987), “Critical Notice: Wesley Salmon's Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World”, Philosophy of Science 54: 597610.Google Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. (1988), “Probabilistic Metaphysics”, in J. H. Fetzer (ed.), Probability and Causality: Essays in Honor of Wesley C. Salmon. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 109132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. (1991), Philosophy and Cognitive Science. New York: Paragon.Google Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. (forthcoming), “What's Wrong with Salmon's History: The Third Decade”, Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. and Nute, D. (1979), “Syntax, Semantics, and Ontology: A Probabilistic Causal Calculus”, Synthese 40: 453495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. and Nute, D. (1980), “A Probabilistic Causal Calculus: Conflicting Conceptions”, Synthese 44: 241246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, M. (1974), “Explanation and Scientific Understanding”, The Journal of Philosophy 71: 519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harré, R. and Madden, E. H. (1975), Causal Powers: A Theory of Natural Necessity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. (1962a), “Deductive-Nomological vs. Statistical Explanation”, in H. Feigl and G. Maxwell (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 3. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 98169.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. (1962b), “Explanation in Science and in History”, in R. G. Colodny (ed.), Frontiers of Science and Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 733.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. (1965), “Aspects of Scientific Explanation”, in C. G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: The Free Press, pp. 331496.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. (1968), “Maximal Specificity and Lawlikeness in Probabilistic Explanation”, Philosophy of Science 35: 116133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, C. G. (1977), “Nachwort 1976”, in C. G. Hempel, Aspekte wissenschaftlicher Erklarung. Berlin: Walter de Gruyer, pp. 98123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, C. G. and Oppenheim, P. (1948), “Studies in the Logic of Explanation”, Philosophy of Science 15: 135175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, P. (1985), “Why Propensities Cannot Be Probabilities”, Philosophical Review 94: 557570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, P. and Salmon, W. C. (1987), “Van Fraassen on Explanation”, The Journal of Philosophy 84: 315330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, P. and Salmon, W. C. (eds.) (1989), Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Mellor, D. H. (1976), “Probable Explanation”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 54: 231241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niiniluoto, I. (1982), “Statistical Explanation”, in G. Floistad (ed.), Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey, vol. 2. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 157187.Google Scholar
Railton, P. (1978), “A Deductive-Nomological Model of Probabilistic Explanation”, Philosophy of Science 45: 206226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railton, P. (1980), Explaining Explanation: A Realist Account of Scientific Explanation. Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. C. (1965), “The Status of Prior Probabilities in Statistical Explanation”, Philosophy of Science 32: 137146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. C. (1970), “Statistical Explanation”, in R. G. Colodny (ed.), The Nature and Function of Scientific Theories. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 173231.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. C. (1971), Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. With contributions by Jeffrey, R. C. and Greeno, J. G. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. C. (1974), “Comments on ‘Hempel's Ambiguity’ by J. Alberto Coffa”, Synthese 28: 165169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. C. (1977), “Objectively Homogeneous Reference Classes”, Synthese 36: 399414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. C. (1984), Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. C. (1990), Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Skyrms, B. (1980), Causal Necessity. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. C. (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B. C. (1989), Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

A correction has been issued for this article: