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Inexactness and Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

D. H. Mellor
D. H. Mellor*
Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Cambridge University
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Abstract

The paper∗∗ discusses the problems raised by the inexactness of experiential concepts for a deductivist account of theoretical explanation. The process of theoretical explanation is explicated in terms of the devising of exact forms of inexact concepts. Analysis of the adjustments of concepts and their exact forms to each other reveals an implicit criterion of adequacy for theories which is related to the principle of connectivity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , December 1966 , pp. 345 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1966

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Footnotes

∗∗

This is a revised version of the first part of a paper read to the British Society for the Philosophy of Science on 11 October 1965. I am indebted to Dr M. B. Hesse, and members of the Moral Sciences research students' seminar at Cambridge, for detailed criticism of earlier versions, and to Mr Jonathan Bennett, and Professors J. Cargile and S. Körner for similarly constructive comments on this version.

References

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