Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World
Hardcover
1984 · Princeton, NJ
by Salmon, Wesley C.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984. Hardcover. VG- (DJ and top edge have some foxing, otherwise good.). Brown cloth, brown dust jacket, 305 pp. "The philosophical theory of scientific explanation proposed here involves a radically new treatment of causality that accords with the pervasively statistical character of contemporary science. Wesley C. Salmon describes three fundational conceptions of scientific explanation -- the epistemic, modal, and ontic. He argues that the prevailing view (a version of the epistemic conception) is untenable and that the modal conception is scientifically outdated. Significantly revising aspects of his earlier work, he defends a causal / mechanical theory that is a version of the ontic conception." (dj). (Inventory #: 136332)