ABSTRACT
The chapter analyzes Hempel’s conception of explanation, which reconstructs it as a logical argument having laws and boundary conditions as premises. It provides a derailed reconstruction of this view and of the motivation for it as well as the criticisms addressed to it. The major criticisms concern the problem of distinguishing causal explanations, the problem of explanatory asymmetries, and the persistent problem of how the laws of nature are to be characterized that must be included among the premises of the argument. The chapter also addresses the later reception and criticisms of Hempel’s deductive-nomological model from Nelson Goodman to Michael Friedman.
