Abstract

This work contrasts the formalist approach to defining explanation in science, exemplified in the Deductive-Nomenological Model of Carl G. Hempel, with the contextualist approach of Thomas Kuhn. It is argued that both of these attempts to define the explanatory processes of science are inadequate. A connection is made between the view of rationality upon which each view is based and the way that it defines explanation. It is argued that a process of thought, which scientific explanation represents, is considered rational by these thinkers only if it meets the criteria of constraint under a rule, distance from subjective considerations and instrumental connection of method and goal. Given this strong definition of rationality, explanation is defined by both Kuhn and Hempel as thought within the constraint of a theory or a theoretical paradigm. Under this construal, explanation is separated as a process from theory invention which both thinkers hold to involve primarily non-cognitive criteria of choice. It is argued in this work that such a view contradicts the actual practice of science where theory invention seems to be primarily a process of rational explaining. ;A detailed historical case of an attempt to explain organic morphogenesis is given. It centers on the theory of generation of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, an 18th Century scientific thinker. This case is meant to illustrate the kinds of cognitive interest and strategies of invention that go into dealing with an explanatory problem in science. ;Finally some general programmatic conclusions are made relating the foregoing arguments and the case, to the need to explore the nature of scientific explanation in the domain of theory invention where the reasoning processes seem to involve analogical reasoning and critical metaphysical thought