(Causal) explanation in historiography

The article describes the models for explanation presented by philosophers Carl Hempel, Wesley Salmon, and Peter Railton, and evaluates their application to historiography. The point of departure is Hempel's deductive-nomological model, which is contrasted by Salmon's causal-mechanistic model. Railton's pluralistic model, based on his concept of an ideal explanatory text comprising all relevant due-to relations converging in the explanandum - causal, intentional, functional, or structural - and on his suggestion to regard explanations as accounts providing explanatory information, is introduces as an alternative that combines elements from the other two. The pragmatic aspects of Railton's analysis, in which all information illuminating parts of the ideal explanatory text is seen as explanatory, are considered particularly valuable to the analysis of explanations proffered by historians. An indication of how such an analysis may proceed is provided by two examples from everyday Norwegian historical practice. Finally, it is argued that since our understanding of what any given explanandum is due to will increase as the relevant ideal explanatory text is illuminated, explanations in historiography should not be limited to intentional explanations, as Collingwood and Dray have suggested, but ought to include causal and structural and, where appropriate, functional explanations as well.