Studies in the Logic of Explanation

作者：Carl G. Hempel, Paul Oppenheim · 发表于：Philosophy of Science · 年份：1948 · DOI：10.1086/286983 · 被引用次数：3141 · 研究领域：Philosophy and History of Science、Cybernetics and Technology in Society、Embodied and Extended Cognition

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.