Salmon's critique of Hempel: an alternative view of statistical explanation and theory building

This paper outlines and discusses Wesley Salmon's S-R model of explanation, and commends it to the favorable attention of political scientists. The discussion undertaken here proceeds in three general sections. The first recounts Hempel's account of deductive-nomological (D-N) and inductive-statistical (I-S) explanation. The discussion will particularly note those aspects of Hempel's account that impart special stringency to the requirements of I-S explanation. Section Two unfolds Salmon's S-R model of explanation, which is both a positive account of his model and a critique of the Hempelian account. The third section illuminates those aspects of Salmon's account that make it particularly useful to researchers who are attempting to develop and test theories en route to explanation. The paper concludes with some comments about the usefulness to political scientists of Salmon's S-R model.