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 classic logical positivist account of historical explanation, putting forward what is variously called the "regularity interpretation" (#Gardiner, The Nature of Historical Explanation), the "covering law model" (#Dray, Laws and Explanation in History), or the "deductive model" (Michael #Scriven, "Truisms as Grounds for Historical Explanations"). See also #Danto, Narration and Knowledge, for further criticisms of the model. Hempel formalizes historical explanation as involving (a) statements of determining (initial and boundary) conditions for the event to be explained, and (b) statements of (...) general laws that imply that whenever events of the kind described in (a) occur, an event of the kind to be explained will take place. He admits that in practice historians rarely explain historical events in this way, but instead give only fragmentary "explanation sketches." Such sketches can, however, be "scientifically acceptable," providing it points to where "more specific statements" are to be found (351). An interesting aspect of the article is its "late" positivist, proto‑Kuhnian assertion that "the separation of 'pure description' and 'hypothetical generalization and theory construction' in empirical science is unwarranted" (356). But Hempel does not work out the wider implications of this important conclusion. It is also worth noting that he himself was not much interested in the philosophy of history; other authors took up his model and discussed it within that context. Usefully discussed by #Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, 1:112‑17. (shrink)

The article is a reappraisal of the requirement of maximal specificity (RMS) proposed by the author as a means of avoiding "ambiguity" in probabilistic explanation. The author argues that RMS is not, as he had held in one earlier publication, a rough substitute for the requirement of total evidence, but is independent of it and has quite a different rationale. A group of recent objections to RMS is answered by stressing that the statistical generalizations invoked in probabilistic explanations must be (...) lawlike, and by arguing that predicates fit for occurrence in lawlike statistical probability statements must meet two conditions, at least one of which is violated in each of the counterexamples adduced in the objections. These considerations suggest the conception that probabilistic-statistical laws concern the long-run frequency of some characteristic within a reference class as characterized by some particular "description" or predicate expression, and that replacement of such a description by a coextensive one may turn a statement that is lawlike into another that is not. Finally, to repair a defect noted by Grandy, the author's earlier formulation of RMS is replaced by a modified version. (shrink)

Carl Gustav Hempel (1905-1997) was one of the preeminent figures in the philosophical movement of logical empiricism. He was a member of both the Berlin and Vienna circles, fled Germany in 1934 and finally settled in the US where he taught for many years in New York, Princeton, and Pittsburgh. The essays in this collection come from the early and late periods of Hempel's career and chart his intellectual odyssey from a rigorous commitment to logical positivism in the 1930s (when (...) Hempel allied himself closely with Carnap) to a more sociological approach close in spirit to the work of Neurath and Kuhn. The collection brings together essays which have up till now been difficult to find, four of which are appearing in English for the first time. Cumulatively they offer a fresh perspective on Hempel's intellectual development and on the rise and demise of logical empiricism. (shrink)

Editor James Fetzer presents an analytical and historical introduction and a comprehensive bibliography together with selections of many of Carl G. Hempel's most important studies to give students and scholars an ideal opportunity to appreciate the enduring contributions of one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century.

The eminent philosopher of science Carl G. Hempel, Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University and a Past President of the American Philosophical Association, has had a long and distinguished academic career in the course of which he has been professorial mentor to some of America's most distinguished philosophers. This volume gathers together twelve original papers by Hempel's students and associates into a volume intended to do homage to Hempel on the occasion of his 65th year in 1970. The papers (...) are grouped around the unifying topic of Hempel's own interests in logic and philosophy of science, the great majority dealing with issues on inductive logic and the theory of scientific explanatio- problems to which Hempel has devoted the bulk of his outstandingly fruitful efforts. With the approach of 'Peter' Hempel's 65th birthday, an editorial committee sprang into being by an uncannily spontaneous process to prepare to commemorate this event with an appropriate Festschrift. The editors were pleased to receive unfailingly prompt and efficient coopera tion on the part of all contributors. The responsibility of seeing the work through the press was assumed by Nicholas Rescher. The editors are grateful to all concerned for their collaboration. ALAN ROSS ANDERSON PAUL BENACERRAF ADOLF GRUNBAUM GERALD J. MASSEY NICHOLAS RESCHER RICHARD S. RUDNER TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE V PAUL OPPENHEIM: Reminiscences of Peter 1 w. v. QUINE: Natural Kinds 5 JAAKKO HINTIKKA: Inductive Independence and the Paradoxes of Confirmation 24 WESLEY c. (shrink)

Schlick schreibt der empirischen Erkenntnis ein unerschütterliches Fundament zu: es bestehe aus "Konstatierungen", d.h. Aussagen, die unmittelbar Erfahrenes ausdrücken und durch die alle empirischen Aussagen hypothetisch-deduktiv überprüfbar sein müssen. Neuraths Auffassung dagegen war diese: (1) Aussagen können logisch nicht durch Vergleich mit "Erfahrungstatsachen" beurteüt werden, sondern nur durch Prüfung ihres Zusammenpassens mit anderen, bereits akzeptierten Aussagen; (2) der Empkismus verlangt, daß die letzteren "Protokollsätze" enthalten müssen, die (etwa von experimentierenden Wissenschaftlern) dkekt akzeptiert wurden; (3) jeder akzeptierte Satz, selbst ein Protokollsatz, (...) ist revisionsfähig: es gibt kein festes Fundament der Erkenntnis.Beide Denker vermischen den semantischen Begriff der Wahrheit mit dem epistemologischen Begriff der Akzeptierbarkeit von Sätzen. Schlicks Einwand, Neuraths "Kohärenztheorie" identifiziere die Wahrheit eines Hypothesensystems mit logischer Widerspruchsfreiheit, übersieht Neuraths empiristische Bedingung (2), die der Akzeptierbarkeit implizit kausale Bedingungen auferlegt. Ähnlich haben Schlicks Konstatierungen einen kausalen Aspekt: hier liegt der empiristische Charakter beider Auffassungen. Neuraths Grundideen wurden in der neueren soziologisch-pragmatischen Wendung der Wissenschaftstheorie weitergeführt. (shrink)

Schlick schreibt der empirischen Erkenntnis ein unerschütterliches Fundament zu: es bestehe aus "Konstatierungen", d.h. Aussagen, die unmittelbar Erfahrenes ausdrücken und durch die alle empirischen Aussagen hypothetisch-deduktiv überprüfbar sein müssen. Neuraths Auffassung dagegen war diese: (1) Aussagen können logisch nicht durch Vergleich mit "Erfahrungstatsachen" beurteüt werden, sondern nur durch Prüfung ihres Zusammenpassens mit anderen, bereits akzeptierten Aussagen; (2) der Empkismus verlangt, daß die letzteren "Protokollsätze" enthalten müssen, die (etwa von experimentierenden Wissenschaftlern) dkekt akzeptiert wurden; (3) jeder akzeptierte Satz, selbst ein Protokollsatz, (...) ist revisionsfähig: es gibt kein festes Fundament der Erkenntnis.Beide Denker vermischen den semantischen Begriff der Wahrheit mit dem epistemologischen Begriff der Akzeptierbarkeit von Sätzen. Schlicks Einwand, Neuraths "Kohärenztheorie" identifiziere die Wahrheit eines Hypothesensystems mit logischer Widerspruchsfreiheit, übersieht Neuraths empiristische Bedingung (2), die der Akzeptierbarkeit implizit kausale Bedingungen auferlegt. Ähnlich haben Schlicks Konstatierungen einen kausalen Aspekt: hier liegt der empiristische Charakter beider Auffassungen. Neuraths Grundideen wurden in der neueren soziologisch-pragmatischen Wendung der Wissenschaftstheorie weitergeführt. (shrink)