The purpose of this essay is to defend the deductive-nomological model of explanation against a number of criticisms that have been made of it. It has traditionally been thought that scientific explanations were causal and that scientific explanations involved deduction from laws. In recent years, however, this three-fold identity has been challenged: there are, it is argued, causal explanations that are not scientific, scientific explanations that are not deductive, deductions from laws that are neither causal explanations nor scientific explanations, and (...) causal explanations that involve no deductions from laws. The aim of the present essay is to defend the traditional identities, and to show that the more recent attempts at invalidating them fail in their object. More specifically, this essay argues that a Humean version of the deductive-nomological model of explanation can be defended as the correct account of scientific explanation of individual facts and processes, and as the correct account of causal explanations of individual facts and processes. The deductive-nomological model holds that to explain an event E, say that a is G, one must find some initial conditions C, say that a is F, and a law or theory T such that T and C jointly entail E, and both are essential to the deduction. (shrink)

Most handbooks on statistics and the theory of probability leave the reader in a mysterious tangle of mathematical rules for computing apparently arbitrarily chosen numerical functions. At first sight, then, a treatise on the Logical Foundations of Probability raises hopes that it will be a guide to clarity in these matters. These hopes are strengthened if the reader remembers that the author, Professor Rudolph Carnap of the University of Chicago, is noted for his thesis that philosophy is the study of (...) the logic of science. On the other hand, a first glance into this book may discourage a reader who, though familiar with statistics, is not familiar with modern logic and its notation. For this reason particularly I shall try to give an account of this book that will enable the interested student to form some opinion of its usefulness to him. (shrink)