Hempel, Carl G. “Two Basic Types of Scientific Explanation” in Frontiers of science and philosophy (1962): 9-33.

In this paper, Hempel proposes the term ‘deductive-nomological’ which states that many scientific explanations are deductively valid arguments having at least one statement of an empirical law in their explanandum. In order to arrive at a conclusive description of the event, law, or fact to be explained, we need a set of ‘explanans’. These are statements of particular facts, and initial conditions that surround the general laws that are relevant to the explanandum. Hempel then stated a series of conditions that are required for the D-N explanation:

The explanandum must be a logical consequence of the explanans. The explanans must contain general laws, and these must be essential for

the derivation of the explanandum The explanans must have empirical content

Questions

1. What is the difference between an expladandum and an explanation?2. What does he mean by logical consequence?3. How do we know if the general law is relevant?

RuebenRuben, D. (1990). ‘Arguments, laws and explainations’ from explaining explanation 182-188, 191-208, 248-252

Ruben aims to present counter-example to Hempel’s account of full explanations. First he discusses the concept of irrelevance, because although explanans may not actually have any explanatory power what so ever. For example, John takes birth control pills regularly and the general law states that every man who takes birth control pills regularly avoid pregnancy. Therefore, the expladandum states that John would avoid being pregnant. This shows that although the general law in the explanans states that taking birth control pills would result in the absence of pregnancy, it is too simple to conclude that this would affect every thing. Ruben uses this bizarre example to show that if the explanans were too general, then anyone could derive a wildly inaccurate explanandum.

Flat generalisations are ones which use the same vocabulary as the singular explanans utilize, and thus do not contribute at all to singular explanation. Rueben argues that what is needed for a satisfying explanation of an event is a group of generalizations which employ a theoretical vocabulary with greater depth.

Questions1. Is there any real difference between an argument theory and a non-

argument (or, specifically, a sentence) theory?2. Isn't the difference between an argument and a sentence theory

somewhat superficial?3. If explanations are typical not arguments, what place do laws have in

explanation?