Abstract

Here the author explains the different ways in which explanation is made. He start saying how we explain things that we don't understand in everyday life, were sometimes simple relates or ideas are enough (to explain complex things to a kid, for example), and for us, when we don't understand something, we organise our thinking in order to find a explanation which has to be intelligible, adequate and correct. In science, they are not always like that, and they start trying to explain the unfamiliar things of the familiar, trying always to develop a theory of the most general kind, which will enable him to explain and predict. They are not looking for adequate, but for correct explanation, which in their case takes the form of a hipotesis. In history they behave just like in everyday life explanations, with little place for generalisations (just middle range), in intelligibility, adequacy, and correctness, because they can not venture in general theory. In conclusion, there is little to say about historical explanation which doesn't fit into everyday life explanation