ABSTRACT
In Section 1.2 we made the distinction between causal-nomological explanations and theoretic explanations, corresponding to the empirical and the theoretic stages of science (Section 1.1). Causal-nomological explanations explain phenomena in terms of causes and effects. Causes are said to bring about their effects through laws of nature. As said in Section 2.1, Hempel (1965) generalizes this idea into what he calls D-N explanations (deductive-nomological explanations), which can be illustrated with the following simple example.
