ABSTRACT
Our search for the nature of scientific explanation leads us back to an examination of causes they cite and laws that connect causes to the effects they explain. An examination of causal explanation makes it clear that what we identify as the cause of an event is almost always merely one among many conditions that could bring it about, and by no means guarantees that it will happen. Moreover, most of the laws we cite include ceteris paribus – other things being equal – clauses. This means that explanations which cite such laws, or such causes, cannot satisfy the logical positivist requirement of giving good grounds to expect their explanandum event to have occurred.
