Deductive explanation of scientific laws

Since the appearance of Hempel’s and Oppenheim’s famous paper (1948) on the logic of scientific explanation a lively discussion has been going on concerning the logical criteria of adequacy for the explanation of singular events (states of affairs, processes, etc.). However, the theoretically much more important topic of the logic of the explanation of scientific laws has been neglected to a great extent in recent discussion. Notable exceptions to this claim are the works by Campbell (1920), Nagel (1961), Bunge (1967), and partly the recent articles by Ackermann (1965), Ackermann and Stenner (1966) and Omer (1970). Furthermore, in the debate between the representatives of the (or a) two-level picture of science (e.g. Hempel, Feigl) and the ‘omnitheoreticians’ (e.g. Feyerabend, Kuhn) the logical aspects of the explanation of (empirical) laws and theories by more developed theories has been treated to some extent. In any case the discussion on the explanation of laws has in general lacked the formal rigour and sophistication characteristic of the discussion of the explanation of singular events.

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