Types of scientific explanations

1. old-school law-based explanations.
   Names: Carl Hempel, Paul Oppenheim
   The rough idea is: explain an event by showing it necessarily follows from laws plus initial conditions.
   Carl Hempel’s Deductive-Nomological model
   If you can derive the event from the law-governed setup, you have explained it.
   Here’s an example event to explain: Why did my cup of water freeze?
   Well, the Law says:  Water freezes below 0°C.
   And the Initial Conditions were:

• The temperature on my porch is -10°C
• I left a cup of water on the porch.

Since we can formally deduce the event from this setup, congratulations, we have explained it.

Of course then you can ask “why does water freeze below 0°C?”