An explanandum (a
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
term) is a sentence describing a
phenomenon
A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfrie ...
that is to be
explained, and the explanans are the sentences adduced as explanations of that phenomenon.
For example, one person may pose an ''explanandum'' by asking "Why is there smoke?", and another may provide an ''explanans'' by responding "Because there is a fire". In this example, "smoke" is the ''explanandum'', and "fire" is the ''explanans''.
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 espe ...
and
Paul Oppenheim (1948),
in their
deductive-nomological model of scientific explanation, motivated the distinction between explanans and explanandum in order to answer why-questions, rather than simply what-questions:
References
Concepts in logic
Philosophy of science
Linguistics
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