Almost every formal model of explanation thus far proposed has been demonstrated to be faulty. In this paper, a new model, proposed by Raimo Tuomela, is also demonstrated to be faulty. In particular, one condition of the model is shown to be too restrictive, and another condition of the model is shown to be too permissive.

Several revisions of the Hempel and Oppenheim definition of explanation have been offered in recent years, and none have gone uncriticized in the literature. In the present paper it is argued that the difficulties involved with these attempts are based upon a confusion between three types of explanation, and that Professor David Kaplan's model of S-explanation provides a uniform treatment of all three types.

Malgré les critiques de toutes sortes dont elle fut et dont elle est encore l'objet, la grammaire transformationnelle est devenue en vingt ans, sous l'impulsion de Noam Chomsky, le paradigme dominant de la linguistique contemporaine. Et, bien sûr, l'incroyable rapidité de cette ascension s'est accompagnée de nombreuses crises de croissance. Linguistes, philosophes et psychologues, ainsi amenés à s'interroger sur les fondements épistémologiques de cette étrange discipline, se sont heurtés à de redoutables énigmes métathéoriques: de quel domaine factuel la linguistique est-elle (...) la science? les grammaires sont-elles empiriquement falsifiables? quel rôle l'intuition du locuteur – et singulièrement celle du linguiste – joue-t-elle dans l'élaboration et la confirmation de la théorie? quelle relation y a-t-il entre règles et lois? quel est le rapport théorique de la linguistique à la psychologie, à la sociologie, à la neurophysiologie? … Ces questions et d'autres semblables ont donné lieu ces dernières années à une étonnante profusion de livres et d'articles, où, à propos d'une discipline particulière et d'exemples précis, sont discutés, souvent en profondeur, tous les principaux problemes de l'épistémologie contemporaine. (shrink)

The present paper first shows that the validity of deductive-nomological (D-N) explanations (systematizations) depends in general on the interpretation context of the predicates involved in the explanation. Therefore, no logical-semantical model can be adequate. This problem is solved by relativisation of the validity criteria on both the confirmation context and the definition context of the premisses. Based upon this, a logical-pragmatical model of D-N explanation is developed. Thereby, especially explanations of laws and global explanations are taken into consideration, since these (...) can be regarded as prototypes of scientific explanation. (shrink)

This paper presents a new formal model for D–N explanation that gives intuitive criteria of acceptability, avoids the known trivializations, and links explanation with confirmation theory. Although set in the twenty-five year tradition of attempts to formalize D–N explanation, it proposes a new direction for the model that is to be distinguished from the syntactical and informational approaches by its introduction of restrictions which derive from the use which the D–N model can have in hypothesis testing. This model, illustrating the (...) verificational approach, revises the classic H–O requirements and amends the notion of partial self-explanation to meet a criticism to which the H–O notion is vulnerable. (shrink)