Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:19:00.180Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Quartercentenary Model of D–N Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

D. A. Thorpe*
Affiliation:
The John Hopkins University

Extract

This paper presents a new formal model for D–N explanation that gives intuitive criteria of acceptability, avoids the known trivializations, and links explanation with confirmation theory. Although set in the twenty-five year tradition of attempts to formalize D–N explanation, it proposes a new direction for the model that is to be distinguished from the syntactical and informational approaches by its introduction of restrictions which derive from the use which the D–N model can have in hypothesis testing. This model, illustrating the verificational approach, revises the classic H–O requirements and amends the notion of partial self-explanation to meet a criticism to which the H–O notion is vulnerable.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 by 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 thank Professor Peter Achinstein for his suggestions and comments on preparing this paper.

References

REFERENCES

[1] Ackermann, R. “Deductive Scientific Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 32 (1965): 155167.10.1086/288036CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2] Eberle, R., Kaplan, D., and Montague, R.Hempel and Oppenheim on Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 28 (1961): 418428.10.1086/287828CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3] Hempel, C. G. and Oppenheim, P.Studies in the Logic of Explanation.” in Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: The Free Press, 1965. Pages 245290.Google Scholar
[4] Hempel, C. G.Postcript (1964) to Studies in the Logic of Explanation.” in Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: The Free Press, 1965. Pages 291296.Google Scholar
[5] Kim, J.On the Logical Conditions of Deductive Explanations.” Philosophy of Science 30 (1963): 286291.10.1086/287943CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6] Morgan, C.Kim on Deductive Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 37 (1970): 434439.10.1086/288318CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7] Omer, I. A.On the D-N Model of Scientific Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 37 (1970): 417433.10.1086/288317CrossRefGoogle Scholar