Rational Explanation Reconsidered

It is over three decades since Carl Hempel advanced what has come to be called the covering-law model of explanation.1 Seventeen years ago William Dray argued that the covering-law model was inapplicable to explanations of human actions in history; he proposed what could be termed the connectingprinciple model of rational explanation of the actions of historical agents.2 Since then, most of the controversy over models of explanation of the actions of historical agents has centered on these models or modifications of them. After a lapse of a further seventeen years, the time may be ripe to offer a new approach and perspective on the problem. Heretofore, the arguments between Hempel and Dray and their respective supporters and modifiers have been conducted on an abstract level with actual examples taken from historians and used only to illustrate the models. The examples proffered are not analyzed. Nor is there any extensive discussion in either Hempel or Dray to show that their models fit the cases they offer as illustrations. This essay employs case-study analysis. Examples of rational explanation taken from historians which are cited and accepted by both Hempel and Dray as rational explanations in history are examined in order to see if either the covering-law or the connecting-principle model adequately depicts the logic of actual rational explanations in history. This paper argues four points: (I ) the models of rational explanation proposed by Hempel and Dray do not fit the examples of rational explanation that they themselves have selected; (2) in spite of their long dispute, their underlying similarities are more important than any differences between them; in particular, they share a common assumption that a model of rational explanation is based on a specific paradigm of decision making: that of a rational deliberative decision to select the best alternative; (3) a detailed analysis of the examples which they cite to illustrate their models points to a different

Epistemology · Economic, financial, and policy analysis · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science

• Applied Ecology and the Logic of Case Studies

  Open Access•Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Kristin Shrader‐frechette et al.•Philosophy of Science•1994

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