On Two Kinds of Explanation

Abstract

Although scientific research practice has undergone historical changes and, moreover, as it displays parallel variant in the synchronic perspective, one can argue thut results of research practice always assume the form of a set of statements arranged more or less aptly into a deductive system. Elements of such a system are connected, explicitly or implicitly, by the relation of logical entailment. In the case of empirical sciences, some of these connections, if they meet additional conditions, are at the same time the connections of explanation. In spite of the fact that such connections frequently appear in the body of research results because investigators have undertaken a conscious effort to perform the explanatory operation, it is by no means necessary that such an operation precedes every instance of the occurrence of explanation. For that purpose, it is sufficient that a particular set of research results contains two units of knowledge (expressed in simple or compound statements) of which it can be said that they are connected by the relation of explanation as defined by the principles of explanation accepted in the community representing a given research discipline at a given time.