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Three Types of Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Brian Cupples
Brian Cupples*
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
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Abstract

Several revisions of the Hempel and Oppenheim definition of explanation have been offered in recent years, and none have gone uncriticized in the literature. In the present paper it is argued that the difficulties involved with these attempts are based upon a confusion between three types of explanation, and that Professor David Kaplan's model of S-explanation provides a uniform treatment of all three types.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 387 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I am indebted to this Journal's anonymous referees for their helpful comments, and to Professor Leon Ellsworth for his many suggestions and corrections in connection with earlier drafts.

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