TY  - BOOK
AU  - Weber,Erik
AU  - Van Bouwel,Jeroen
AU  - De Vreese,Leen
ED  - SpringerLink (Online service)
TI  - Scientific Explanation
T2  - SpringerBriefs in Philosophy,
SN  - 9789400764460
AV  - B67 
U1  - 501 23
PY  - 2013///
CY  - Dordrecht
PB  - Springer Netherlands, Imprint: Springer
KW  - Philosophy
KW  - Philosophy and science
KW  - Philosophy of Science
KW  - Philosophy, general
N1  - Chapter 1. Theories of Scientific Explanation -- Chapter 2. How to study Scientific Explanation? -- Chapter 3. A Toolbox for Describing and Evaluating Explanatory Practices -- Chapter 4. Examples of Descriptions and Evaluations of Explanatory Practices
N2  - When scientist investigate why things happen, they aim at giving an explanation. But what does a scientific explanation look like? In the first chapter (Theories of Scientific Explanation)  of this book, the milestones in the debate on how to characterize scientific explanations are exposed. The second chapter (How to Study Scientific Explanation?) scrutinizes the working-method of three important philosophers of explanation, Carl Hempel, Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon and shows what went wrong. Next, it is the responsibility of current philosophers of explanation to go on where Hempel, Kitcher and Salmon failed. However, we should go on in a clever way. We call this clever way the pragmatic approach to scientific explanation and clarify briefly what this approach consists in. The third chapter (A Toolbox for Describing and Evaluating Explanatory Practices) elaborates the pragmatic approach by presenting a toolbox for analysing scientific explanation. In the last chapter (Examples of Descriptions and Evaluations of Explanatory Practices) the approach is illustrated with real-life examples of scientists aiming at explaining. This book can be used as a textbook for intermediate philosophy of science courses and is also valuable as “suggested reading” for introductory courses in philosophy of science. The way the book is set up makes it an excellent study and research guide for advanced (MA and PhD) students that work on the topic of scientific explanation. Finally, it is a handy source and reference book for senior researchers in the field of scientific explanations and – more generally – for all philosophers of science.  
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6446-0
ER  -