How to Study Scientific Explanation?

Abstract

This chapter investigates the working-method of three important philosophers of explanation discussed in Chap. 1: Carl Hempel, Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon. We argue that they do three things: (i) construct an explication in the sense of Rudolf Carnap, which then is used as a tool to make (ii) descriptive and (iii) normative claims about the explanatory practice of scientists. In Sect. 2.2—which has a preliminary character—we present Carnap’s view on what the task of explication is, on the requirements it has to satisfy and on its function. In Sect. 2.3 we show that Carl Hempel develops an explication of the concept of explanation and makes descriptive and normative claims with it. We also show that he fails to provide convincing arguments for these claims. In Sects. 2.4 and 2.5 we show that Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon had a similar working-method in their philosophical analysis of scientific explanation and failed at the same stage as Hempel: the arguments for the descriptive and normative claims are missing. We think it is the responsibility of current philosophers of explanation to go on where Hempel, Kitcher and Salmon failed. However, we should go on in a clever way. We call this clever way the “pragmatic approach to scientific explanation.” We clarify what this approach consists in and defend it in Sect. 2.6.