Explanation

pp. 3-65

in: Mario Bunge, Scientific research II, Berlin, Springer, 1967

Abstract

The main rationale of the invention and test of hypotheses, laws, and theories, is the solution to why-problems, i.e. the explanation of facts and their patterns. We do not rest content with finding facts but wish to know why they should occur rather than not; and we do not even rest content with establishing explanatory constant conjunctions of facts but attempt to discover the mechanism explaining such correlations.