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A Remark on Hempel's Replies to His Critics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Stephens M. Dietz
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Extract

One of the most difficult problems facing anyone who would discuss Professor Carl Hempel's thesis about explanation is the following: which of the many objections that have been made are actually relevant to the thesis ? Professor Hempel has claimed that several of these objections are not relevant at all ([1], pp. 412-414). In order to evaluate such replies, let me first state what I take to be the three claims which constitute Professor Hempel's thesis.

His first claim is that all adequate scientific explanations possess a certain property:

... all scientific explanations and their everyday counterparts claim or presuppose at least implicitly the deductive or inductive subsumability of whatever is to be explained under general laws or theoretical principles ([1], p. 425).

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , December 1970 , pp. 614 - 617
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 by The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

*

I should like to give acknowledgment to, and to thank, Professors Dray and Gorovitz, and especially this Journal's referee of my article, for both criticism and encouragement.

References

REFERENCE

[1] Hempel, C. G., Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the Philosophy of Science, The Free Press, New York, 1965.Google Scholar