In this paper, I shall examine attempts to furnish formal models for deductive scientific explanation. All such attempts have had certain defects. The most serious of these defects is to be found in the fact that the extant models seem to be formally restrictive in ways that do not allow any obvious generalization of their conditions which will encompass the full range of all those scientific explanations which must be considered plausible candidates for translation into deductive models.

Hempel and Oppenheim have stated in Part III of their paper “Studies in the Logic of Explanation” [2] a set of conditions for deductive explanation. However, their analysis has come under damaging systematic criticisms in a recent paper by Eberle, Kaplan and Montague [1], The principal aim of the present paper is to review the Hempel-Oppenheim analysis and propose a strengthened version of it that avoids the recent criticisms.

In 'Hempel and Oppenheim on Explanation', (see preceding article) Eberle, Kaplan, and Montague criticize the analysis of explanation offered by Hempel and Oppenheim in their 'Studies in the Logic of Explanation'. These criticisms are shown to be related to the fact that Hempel and Oppenheim's analysis fails to satisfy simultaneously three newly proposed criteria of adequacy for any analysis of explanation. A new analysis is proposed which satisfies these criteria and thus is immune to the criticisms brought against the earlier (...) analysis. (shrink)

To explain the phenomena in the world of our experience, to answer the question “why?” rather than only the question “what?”, is one of the foremost objectives of all rational inquiry; and especially, scientific research in its various branches strives to go beyond a mere description of its subject matter by providing an explanation of the phenomena it investigates. While there is rather general agreement about this chief objective of science, there exists considerable difference of opinion as to the function (...) and the essential characteristics of scientific explanation. In the present essay, an attempt will be made to shed some light on these issues by means of an elementary survey of the basic pattern of scientific explanation and a subsequent more rigorous analysis of the concept of law and of the logical structure of explanatory arguments. (shrink)

The Lorentz-formulae are deduced from three factual statements the physical meaning of which is explained in terms of operations with clocks, light-signals and measuring rods. These statements are: (1) The time-length of a process is invariant. (2) The velocity of light is the same in all inertial systems. (3) The velocity of light is independent of the source. It is also shown that these statements can be deduced from the Lorentz-formulae. They are the physical content of the latter. The principle (...) of relativity and the light-principle together, however, contain more physical meaning than the Lorentz-formulae. Operational definitions are given for all relevant concepts. (shrink)

Hempel and Oppenheim, in their paper 'The Logic of Explanation', have offered an analysis of the notion of scientific explanation. The present paper advances considerations in the light of which their analysis seems inadequate. In particular, several theorems are proved with roughly the following content: between almost any theory and almost any singular sentence, certain relations of explainability hold.