''Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the Philosophy of Science'' is a 1965 book by the philosopher
Carl Gustav Hempel
Carl Gustav "Peter" Hempel (January 8, 1905 – November 9, 1997) was a German writer, philosopher, logician, and epistemologist. He was a major figure in logical empiricism, a 20th-century movement in the philosophy of science. He is espec ...
. It is regarded as one of the most important works in the
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
written after World War II.
Reception
The historian
Peter Gay
Peter Joachim Gay (né Fröhlich; June 20, 1923 – May 12, 2015) was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Sch ...
wrote that ''Aspects of Scientific Explanation'' was "seminal" and "indispensable", writing that Hempel persuasively argued that "the logic of history and that of the natural sciences are the same." Gay observed that Hempel's essay "The Function of General Laws in History" is a "much debated classic". The philosopher
Michael Friedman described the book as one of the most important works in philosophy of science written after World War II.
See also
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Models of scientific inquiry
Models of scientific inquiry have two functions: first, to provide a descriptive account of ''how'' scientific inquiry is carried out in practice, and second, to provide an explanatory account of ''why'' scientific inquiry succeeds as well as it ap ...
References
Bibliography
;Books
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1965 non-fiction books
American non-fiction books
Books by Carl Gustav Hempel
English-language books
Essay collections
Philosophy of science literature