Nicholas Rescher
（1970年刊行, The Free Press, New York, xviii+242 pp.）
証拠（evidence）がキーワードになっているようで興味深い．歴史的説明のような非正確科学（inexact sciences）に対する考察も．
【目次】
Preface viiPart I: Fundamentals of the Theory of Explanation 1
1. What is Explanation? 1
2. The Tasks of a Theory of Explanation 4
3. The Pragmatic Aspect of Explanation and Its Abstraction by Science 6
4. What Makes an Explanation Scientific? 8
5. The Role of Laws in Scientific Explanation 10
6. Explanation and the Coherence of Laws 14
7. The Grounding of Explanation: Actual versus Possible Explanations 17
8. The Classification of Explanations 19
9. The Idea of Completeness in Explanation 22Part II: Formal Analysis of Explanatory Concepts 25
1. The Machinery of Discrete State Systems (DS-Systems) 25
2. Explanation, Prediction, Retrodiction 30
3. Deductive versus Probabilistic Explanatory Arguments 37
4. Explanation and Its Cognates in Deterministic DS-Systems 40
5. Explanation and Its Cognates in Indeterministic DS-Systems 44
6. Infinite Discrete State Systems 55
7. The Comparative Evaluation of Probabilistic Explanations 57
8. Chronologically Teleological Explanation and Teleology versus Mechanism 66
9. Explanation and Its Cognates as Fundamentally Evidential Reasonings: Evidence versus Demonstration 72
10. The Logic of Evidence 76Part III: Philosophical Issues of Scientific Explanation 97
1. What Is a Universal Law? The Nature of Lawfulness 97
2. Lawfulness as Imputation 105
3. Lawfulness as Mind-Dependent 113
4. Causal Laws: The Principle of Causality ans Its Limitations 121
5. The Stochastic Revolution and Downfall of Causality 125
6. Explanation, Scientific Understanding, and the Aim of Science 130
7. Explanatory Frameworks and the Limits of Scientific Explanation 135
8. The Problem of Explanatory Ultimates 140
Appendix I: Are Historical Explanations Different? 147
Appendix II: On the Epistemology of the Inexact Sciences 163
Bibliography on Scientific Explanation 209
Index of Names 241
