Wesley Salmon on Explanation, Probability and Rationality

  • Maria Carla Galavotti
Chapter
Part of the The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science book series (WONS, volume 61)

Abstract

The publication of Wesley Salmon’s “Statistical explanation” in 1970 heralded a new era for the debate on scientific explanation. Salmon not only broke the predominance of Hempel’s theory, that had held the stage for nearly a quarter of a century, but opened a new perspective on explanation. Since then he has devoted a relentless effort to articulating and expanding his view, which represents the most outstanding alternative to Hempel’s account. A decisive step in this direction was taken in 1984 with the publication of Salmon’s book Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World, where the traditional (but dismissed) idea that explaining means showing the causes of phenomena was re-shaped in a probabilistic framework. More recently, Salmon has come to see causality as an essential ingredient of a probabilistically oriented view of rationality.

Keywords

Causal Structure Scientific Explanation Causal Process Dynamic Rationality Reference Class 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1999

Authors and Affiliations

  • Maria Carla Galavotti
    • 1
  1. 1.Dipartimento di FilosofiaItaly

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