Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-03T03:15:21.709Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Remarks on the Logic of Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Lars Skarsgård
Lars Skarsgård*
Affiliation:
University of Gothenburg
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

These considerations on Carl G. Hempel's and Paul Oppenheim's lucid article “Studies in the Logic of Explanation'”—LE for short—are an attempt to exploit some of the considerable advances made there. I wish to show how these advances may be incorporated into a technique for the investigation of problems of the philosophy of science, which has been called discourse-analytic. This discipline consists essentially in a technique of examining actual texts provided by specialists, such as physicists, psychologists, historians, etc., the task being to discover fundamental logical and semantical features in the discourses under investigation. I am preparing a book on historical explanation, which will contain such case studies of historical texts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 1958 , pp. 199 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1958

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Carnap, Rudolf, “The Interpretation of Physics”, Readings (6). Reprinted from Foundations of Logic and Mathematics, pp. 56–69, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, 1, 3, 1939.Google Scholar
2. Carnap, Rudolf, The Methodological Character of Theoretical Concepts, Minnesota Studies (7), pp. 38–87.Google Scholar
3. Carnap, Rudolf, “Truth and Confirmation”. Readings (8). Adapted by Carnap, and translated by Feigl from “Wahrheit und Bewährung”, Actes du Congrès International de Philosophie Scientifique, 1936.Google Scholar
4. Donagan, Alan, “Explanation in History”, Mind, April 1957, pp. 145–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Dray, William, “Explanatory Narrative in History”, The Philosophical Quarterly, January 1954, pp. 15–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Feigl, Herbert and Brodbeck, May, eds., Readings in the Philosophy of Science, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1953.Google Scholar
7. Feigl, Herbert and Scriven, Michael, eds., Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. I, The Foundations of Science and the Concepts of Psychology and Psychoanalysis, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1956.Google Scholar
8. Feigl, Herbert and Sellars, Wilfred. eds., Readings in Philosophical Analysis, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1949.Google Scholar
9. Cardiner, Patrick, The Nature of Historical Explanation, Oxford University Press, London, 1952.Google Scholar
10. Hempel, Carl G., Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, 2, 7, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1952.Google Scholar
11. Hempel, Carl G., “The Function of General Laws in History”, The Journal of Philosophy, 39, 1, 1942, pp. 35–48. Reprinted in (8).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12. Hempel, Carl G. and Oppenheim, Paul, “Studies in the Logic of Explanation”, Philosophy of Science, 15, 1948, pp. 135–175. Reprinted, with the omission of part IV, in (6) under the title “The Logic of Explanation”.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13. Pap, Arthur, Analytische Erkenntnistheorie, Springer-Verlag, Wien, 1955.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14. Reichenbach, Hans, “Die logische Grundlagen des Wahrscheinlichkeitsbegriff”, Erkenntnis, 3, 1932/33, pp. 401–425. Translated and reprinted under the title “The Logical Foundations of the Concept of Probability in (6) and in (8).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15. Reichenbach, Hans, Elements of Symbolic Logic, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1948.Google Scholar
16. Törnebohm, Håkan, Fysik och filosofi, ett vetenskapsteoretiskt studium. Appendix: On Explanations, Predictions, and Theories in Physics, A Case Study, Acta Universitalis Gothoburgensis, LXIII: 4, Göteborg, 1957.Google Scholar
17. Törnebohm, Håkan, Om förklaringar i historien, Studier utg. av Hans Larsson Samfundet, Lund (forthcoming). (An anthology)Google Scholar
18. Törnebohm, Håkan, “Discourse analysis”, Theoria, 21, 1, 1955, pp. 42–54.Google Scholar