Scientific explanation;
Laws of nature;
Hume;
Lewis;
Grounding;
Hempel;
D O I:
10.1007/s11098-012-0001-x
中图分类号:
B [哲学、宗教];
学科分类号:
01 ;
0101 ;
摘要:
It has often been argued that Humean accounts of natural law cannot account for the role played by laws in scientific explanations. Loewer (Philosophical Studies 2012) has offered a new reply to this argument on behalf of Humean accounts-a reply that distinguishes between grounding (which Loewer portrays as underwriting a kind of metaphysical explanation) and scientific explanation. I will argue that Loewer's reply fails because it cannot accommodate the relation between metaphysical and scientific explanation. This relation also resolves a puzzle about scientific explanation that Hempel and Oppenheim (Philosophy of Science 15:135-75, 1948) encountered.