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Narrative Explanation Revisited
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
T. A. Gouge has argued that certain explanations in evolutionary biology should be understood as conforming to the so-called ‘narrative’ model of explanation, where the chief distinguishing feature between this model and the well-known ‘covering-law’ model is that this narrative model, unlike the covering-law model, makes no appeal at all to laws. In support of his case Goudge offered an example of an evolutionary explanation which, he claimed, comes closer to the narrative model than the covering-law model. In a recent paper in this Journal I offered a critique of Goudge's model of narrative explanation, and I suggested that there were good reasons for understanding Goudge's example of an evolutionary explanation as making some kind of appeal to laws (and thus in vital respects conforming to the covering-law model).
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- Copyright © The Authors 1975
References
1 The Ascent of Life (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961 ).
2 “Narrative Explanation and the Theory of Evolution,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, I (1971-72), 59-74.
3 “Narrative Explanation and Redescription,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, III (1973-74), 419-425.
4 Man and the Vertebrates (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1941).
5 Ruse, op. cit., p. 72.Google Scholar
6 Burhenn, op. cit., p. 422.Google Scholar
7 For example, the derivation of the ideal gas law from Boyle's and Charles's laws.
8 Burhenn, op. cit., p. 422.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., p. 423.
10 Ruse, op. cit., pp. 66–67.Google Scholar
11 For example, in Hempel, C. G. Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), p. 51.Google Scholar
12 Burhenn, op. cit., p. 424.Google Scholar
13 I discuss in some detail the sense in which the covering-law model is a ‘model’ in my book, The Philosophy of Biology (London: Hutchinson, 1973).
14 Burhenn, op. cit., p. 424.Google Scholar
15 Ibid., pp. 424–425.
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