Description:
The nature of scientific explanation has been an important topic in philosophy of science for many years. This book highlights some of the conceptual problems that still need to be solved and points out a number of fresh philosophical ideas to explore. Anyone interested in causal and probabilistic explanation, explanation-seeking questions and contrastive explanations, inference to the best explanation, or explanations within the special sciences should find something of interest in this book.
Review Quotes:
From the reviews:
"'Rethinking Explanation' is Volume 152 of the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. ... The writing style of all chapters, though 'academic', is clear, intelligible, comparatively jargon-free for philosophy-suave readers ... . The present book ... indicate that inasmuch as all scientific/technological and humanistic knowledge domains retain a rapid expansion into all phases of society there is a great demand for modern approaches 'to explain'." (Karl H. Wolf, International Journal of General Systems, 2008)