ABSTRACT
Scriven, Michael . . .whatever an explanation actually does, in order to be called an explanation at all it must be capable of making clear something not previously clear, i.e. of increasing or producing understanding of something. The difference between explaining and “merely” informing. . . does not, I shall argue, consist in explaining being something “more than” or even something intrinsically different from informing or describing, but in its being the appropriate piece of informing or describing, the appropriateness being a matter of its relation to a particular context.
