Abstract
The positivists followed the empiricist tradition of Bacon, Hume and J.S. Mill in defending the following model of explanation:1 one explains the individual fact that a is G by means of a law, that is, a true generalization,2 and certain individual facts, called the initial conditions, which are such that they and the law together jointly entail or logically imply the fact to be explained.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Wilson, F. (1991). Positivist Models of Explanation. In: Empiricism and Darwin’s Science. The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 47. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3756-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3756-0_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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