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HISTORICAL EXPLANATION:
THE POPPER-HEMPEL THEORY RECONSIDERED
ALAN DONAGAN
For better or worse, the point of departure for most recent philosophical
investigations of historical explanation is a theory which has been lucidly
and succinctly propounded by Professors K. R. Popper and C. G. Hempel.'
Their theory has been vehemently assailed and defended; and Hempel himself has been prevailed upon to modify it. These controversies, especially
since the appearance of Professor W. H. Dray's Laws and Explanations in
History, have generated light as well as heat. We can now see what the theory
is clearly enough to appraise it.
ALAN DONAGAN
THE POPPER-HEMPEL
THEORY RECONSIDERED
there are theoretical sciences of individual and social human activity, e.g.,
psychology and sociology (Popper [21] II, 265).
As long as his usage is intelligible and consistent, Popper may use the
term "historical sciences" as he pleases. But although quarrels about terminology are idle, it is not idle to point out that using the term "historical
sciences" as Popper does may obscure an important issue. A large number,
probably a large majority, of practising historians and philosophical students
of historiography, have in one way or another sharply distinguished between
human history and the study of past natural events (Collingwood [5], 215-6).
All works commonly recognized as "historical" are about human affairs;
they touch upon natural processes only as they affect and are affected by
human responses to them. We shall, therefore, consider Popper's theory only
in its application to the study of past human affairs. Yet it would be wrong to
assume either that the sciences which study human affairs differ in principle
from those which study natural processes, or that they do not. That is a
question to be answered, not begged.
ALAN DONAGAN
THE POPPER-HEMPEL
THEORY RECONSIDERED
ALAN DONAGAN
going through the table. I do not think that this fact damages the deductive
thesis. Why should we not say that putative "inductive-probabilistic"explanations approach genuine explanations, in a measure as the statistical probability of the micro-mass events whose occurrence a genuine explanation must
exclude approaches zero? The gambler's odds on which most such alleged
explanations depend do not approach zero as closely as do the odds of
winning a lottery: and in micro-physics such odds would be worthless. When,
however, the odds against an untoward result are as long as they are in microphysics, the possibility of such a result may, as Eddington says, be "neglected". But to show that a possibility may be neglected does not explain
why it is not realized: rather, it shows that the need to explain it is negligible.
Other examples which may be advanced are less difficult. Hempel's own
original example: that of the boy who came down with the measles two weeks
after his brother, who had not been in the company of anybody else who
had them, and about whom "we accept the explanation that he caught the
disease from his brother", is manifestly not "causal" in Popper's and Hempel's sense. An explanation of how somebody came to catch a disease (he
was exposed to infection, or he was in a weakened condition, or the like) is
not by itself a causal explanation of why he caught it. It more resembles one
of Dray's "how possibly" explanations.2 All such apparent counter-examples
may be detected by submitting them to the test: Do they purport to be explanations of why the event explained occurred, raher than did not occur?
The deductive thesis is intended to apply only to examples which pass this
test. To offer as objections examples which fail to pass it is ignoratio elenchi.
For these reasons, Hempel's inductive-statistical model throws no light on
causal explanations of individual events. Besides being intrinsically interesting, it may be of use in analysing rational expectation and some kinds of
non-causal explanation. But, with respect to causal explanation. Hempel's
first thoughts were better than his last. The deductive thesis of the original
Popper-Hempel theory is not shaken by what he has said against it.
One final objection merits attention. Professor Scriven has argued that
since "explanations are practical, context-bound affairs", a certain explanans
may, in context, completely explain why an event occurred, even though,
taken by itself, it does not logically entail that that event did occur (Scriven
[25], 450). Here Scriven is plainly right; and if the deductive thesis implied
that explanations are incomplete unless they are explicitly thrown into deductive form, he would have established a valid objection to it. But neither
Popper nor Hempel demands that everything in an explanation be explicit
(Popper [21], II, 264-5; Hempel [12], 348). They contend only that a
thorough analysis of explanation must treat of what is implicit as well as of
what is explicit. Hence they include in the explanans not only what in an
This was pointed out by Dray in one of his two papers read at Indiana University
(25 and 26 April, 1963). See Dray [8].
2
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ALAN DONAGAN
THE POPPER-HEMPEL
THEORY RECONSIDERED
11
added to this statement of initial conditions so that it may both entail the
explanandum and deserve serious consideration as an explanans?
A modest answer would be: you need add only the singular hypothetical
statement, If John eats a quarter of a pound or more of sugar, then soon
afterwards he falls into a coma. Even in the days before the nature and
symptoms of diabetes were known, there may have been individuals who
survived diabetic comas of whom such individual hypothetical statements
were known to hold. Suppose John to have been such an individual. Then
whoever explained John's coma by saying that he had recently eaten a
quarter of a pound of sugar might conform his explanation to the deductive
thesis as follows:
John some time ago ate a quarter of a pound of sugar
(initial condition),
If John eats a quarter of a pound or more of sugar then soon afterwards
he falls into a coma,
Therefore, John has fallen into a coma (explanandum).
This unquestionably fails to satisfy the covering law thesis, as Popper and
Hempel originally defined it (see above ? ? 1-2), because the individual
hypothetical statement which connects the initial conditions with the explanandum is not a "universal law" (Popper) or "universal hypothesis"
(Hempel). That is why, according to the Popper-Hempel theory, alleged
explanations like the one I have constructed are spurious.
Professed defenders of both the deductive thesis and the covering law
thesis who do not relish this conclusion have recently proposed to relax the
covering law thesis by abandoning Popper's and Hempel's requirement that
covering laws be strictly universal. Why, it may be asked, should advocates
of the Popper-Hempel theory scorn such a concession? They are importuned
to grant no more than that statements containing proper names or their
equivalents may qualify as laws. And is not that plausible? Was not Kepler's
elliptical orbit law originally asserted of the planet Mars; and even now do
not Kepler's laws refer only to the planets of the Sun? Do not Galileo's laws
of terrestrial motion implicitly refer to the earth, a named individual object
(Bartley [1], 27; Brodbeck [3], 264)? Why scruple over a modification enforced by both common usage and polemical advantage?
12
ALAN DONAGAN
have taken Mithridaticprecautions.It is merely a special case of the universal hypothetical, If x is a man in normal condition, and x takes a large
dose of arsenic, then soon afterwards x will have burning pains in the throat.
13
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ALAN DONAGAN
coma after eating more than a certain amount of sugar? Here I confess that
I do not think that correct usage, whether of scientists or plain men, matters
a jot. The two kinds of thing which it is proposed to call "causal explanations" are different. It does not matter which you say: whether that an
alleged science which cannot provide explanations involving strictly universal
laws cannot explain anything; or merely that the explanations it can provide
are of a fundamentally inferior kind. The point of the Popper-Hempel theory
is that there is a difference between the two alleged kinds of explanation,
and that it is important.
15
this: "If we say that the cause of the death of GiordanoBruno was being
burntat the stake,we do not need to mentionthe universallaw that all living
things die when exposed to intense heat" (Popper [22], 145). Here, indeed,
is an explanationwhich rests on a law from naturalscience;but it is not an
historical explanation,because Bruno's death, as such, was not an event
involvinghuman action. You cannot in such a way explain why Giordano
Bruno was sent to the stake, or why he defied his persecutors.A similar
point may be made about all explanationswhich employ laws from the
naturalsciences.
(ii) Examples with commonplaces as laws. Two apparentlynon-physical
examplesof commonplaceswhich historiansoccasionallyecho are Popper's,
"You cannot, without increasingproductivity,raise the real income of the
workingpopulation",and Acton's "Powertends to corrupt"(Popper [23],
282; [22], 62).
The formeris simplyfalse, as ancientRome showed by living on tribute;
but if you modify it to, "If the real income of the workingpopulationis to
be raised, assumingfull employment,that no new naturalresourcesare discovered,and that income cannotbe obtainedfrom outside, e.g., by begging,
borrowing,or stealing,then productivitymust be increased",you reduce it
to an applicationof the law of the conservationof energy.As such, it is not
about historicalevents, but about their physical conditions.Historianstake
accountof the physicallimitationsupon humanactions;but explainingthose
actionsis anotherthing. As for Acton's law, it also conflictswith numerous
examples(e.g., that of the Antonineemperorsin Rome) unless you transform
it into the analyticstatement."Poweroffers temptations(and opportunities)
which weaknessdoes not", which is not what Acton meant.
Generallyspeaking,the commonplaceswhich are commonlymistakenfor
laws turn out to fall into one of three classes:applicationsof laws of natural
science, whether physical or biological; analytic statements;or universal
statementswhich are either evidently false or evidently uncorroborated.
Those belongingto the second and thirdclasses cannotsupportany scientific
causal explanationat all; and those belongingto the first cannot support
those with which historiansare specificallyconcerned.
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ALAN DONAGAN
(iii) Examples with alleged laws from the social sciences. In The Poverty
17
by advocates of the Popper-Hempeltheory is an event explained by resolving it into its factors, eliciting those which are relevant, and deducing
their occurrence, according to well-corroboratedand exactly formulated
laws, from the occurrenceof other relevantfactors in the initial conditions.
By remindingus of what a genuine Popper-Hempelhistoricalexplanation
would be, if it could be got, Mandelbaumhas rubbed in the fact that we
have not got them.
To repeat and conclude: You cannot refute a denial that the sciences
(presumablypsychology and the social sciences) have furnishedhistorians
with coveringlaws which they may use in theirexplanationsby showingthat
there are "lawsor hypotheses".Nobody has ever doubtedthat some sociologists,for example,have propoundedsuch hypotheses.Whathas been doubted
is whetherany of them are true.The existenceof false sociologicalhypotheses
cannotshow that thereare truehistoricalexplanationswhichrest on covering
laws. And until examplesmore convincingthan any I am acquaintedwith
are produced,I shall continueto hold, with ProfessorEvans-Pritchard,that
"One has a right. . . to ask those who assert that the aim of social anthropology is to formulatesociologicallaws similar to the laws formulatedby
naturalscientists to produce formulationswhich resemble what are called
laws in those sciences. Up to the presentnothingeven remotelyresembling
what are called laws in the naturalsciences has been adduced- only rather
naive deterministic,teleological,and pragmaticassertions"(Evans-Pritchard
[11], 57).
? 8. Historical Explanation and the "Logic of the Situation"
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ALAN DONAGAN
"Theyare never fully explicablein terms of the situationalone; an explanation of the way in which a man, when crossing a street, dodges the cars
which move on it may go beyondthe situation,and may referto his motives,
to an "instinct"of self-preservation,or to his wish to avoid pain, etc. But
this psychologicalpart of the explanationis very often trivial, as compared
with the detaileddeterminationof his action by what we may call the logic
of the situation. . ." (Popper [21], II, 97).
I agree with Popper that, fundamentally,historicalexplanationsare explanationsby "the logic of the situation";and I offer only three objections
to his accountof them. First, what a man does dependson the situationas
he thinks it to be, ratherthan the situation as it is. Secondly, while what
Popper calls "the psychologicalpart" of such explanationsis very often
"trivial"in the sense of "obvious",it is not "trivial"in the sense of "unimportant".The informationthat a man in traffic seeks to avoid injuryand
not to commitsuicideis indispensable,even if it is often obvious,in explaining
the way he moves. Thirdly,Popper has neglectedto draw attentionto the
fact that what he calls "thepsychologicalpart"of such explanationscontains
no coveringlaw. He has indeed pointed out that "the method of applyinga
situationallogic ... is not based on any psychologicalassumptionconcerning
the rationality(or otherwise)of 'humannature'" (Popper[21], II, 97). That
is true, but insufficient.Whatis more importantis that it is not based on any
universalhypothesiswhatever.The informationthat this man seeks to avoid
injury, or that man to commit suicide, or yet another to sustain a minor
injuryin orderto obtain damages,is in no case a universalhypothesis.
Althoughhistoriansare not, as such, committedto any particularview of
human action, they practise a methodologicalscepticism which resembles
the scepticismof traditionalWesternmorality.The coveringlaw thesis implies that the intentionsascribedto historicalagentsin what Poppercalls the
"psychologicalpart" of historicalexplanationscan themselvesbe explained
by deducingtheir occurrence,accordingto universallaws, from the previous
states and circumstancesof those agents. Historiansdo not, indeed, deny
that an agent's intentionscan often be explained, by derivingthem from
some more general intention or intentionshe has and his estimate of his
situation.But such derivationscome to an end: for every agent, at a given
juncture,there are ultimateintentions,ultimateperceptualjudgements,and
ultimateinferences,which rest on nothingfurther.The coveringlaw thesis
implies that even such ultimates are in principle explicable accordingto
coveringlaws, whetherpsychologicalor sociological,or perhapseven, with
the aid of undiscoveredcompositionlaws, neuro-physiological.
Neither historiansnor philosophersof history are in a position to deny a
priori the possibility of such explanations.But most historianswould be
scepticalof a profferedexplanationin which it was assumedthat all agents
of the same psychologicaltype, or in the same sociologicalposition, when
19
20
ALAN DONAGAN
THE POPPER-HEMPEL
THEORY RECONSIDERED
21
that Brutus was resolved to preserve the Republic at all costs it follows, not
only that he would decide to join Cassius' conspiracy if he judged that only
by his doing so could the Republic be preserved, but also that if he believed
that to preserve the Republic it was necessary to murder Antonius, then he
would agree to murder Antonius. Since there is evidence that he did not
agree to murder Antonius, if you could show that he believed that to preserve
the Republic it was necessary to murder Antonius, you would falsify the
explanation of why he joined Cassius.4 Since you cannot show this, and can
present some evidence against it, the result of your attempt to falsify the
explanation would have been to corroborate it.
Dray has offered an interesting objection to this conception of the corroboration of historical explanations.5 If the presupposition of individual
choice is true, then an agent's intentions at one time do not determine his
intentions at another. It therefore appears to follow that Brutus's refusal to
murder Antonius could not be cited as falsifying an hypothesis about his
intention in joining Cassius's conspiracy, unless both events were simultaneous; for he could have changed his intention in the interval between them.
This appearance is delusive.
Suppose that you could show that Brutus believed that to save the Republic it was necessary to murder Antonius, then his refusal to sanction
Antonius' murder would falsify the hypothesis that, at that time, he intended
to save the Republic at all costs. The original hypothesis, that his intention
on joining Cassius's conspiracy was to save the Republic at all costs, might
indeed be rescued by supposing that Brutus changed his intention after joining the conspiracy. No competent historian, however, would protect his
hypothesis by such a device, unless he were unable to hit upon some other
hypothesis about Brutus's intentions which was consistent both with his
joining the conspiracy and with his refusing to sanction Antonius' murder.
The reason for this has been clearly explained by Popper. The hypothesis
that an historical agent held to a certain intention throughout a certain interval is more highly falsifiable than the hypothesis that during that interval
he changed his intention, which divides into two hypotheses, each about his
I It is importantthat such deductions be strict. In an earlier paper (Donagan [6], 432-3)
I occasioned some confusion by assertingthat, from the fact that the Danish invaders of
Saxon England were plunderers, it could be deduced that their literature and religion
(if any) would glorify war. I meant that this could be rigorously deduced from the
statement that they were plunderers, together with other statements about them which
there is reason to accept. However, I did not work out such a deduction; and I now
doubt whether there are any plausible premises from which it could be done which
would not render the premise that they were plunderers superfluous. Perceiving this,
Brodbeck boldly but wrongly concluded that I intended to embrace a context theory of
meaning, according to which having a certain kind of literature and religion was part
of the meaning of 'plunderer'(Brodbeck [3], 270-1). I have never held such a theory;
but I did make bad use of a bad example.
5 In one of his papers at Indiana.
22
ALAN DONAGAN
23
suffice. It is advancedas an immediatecorollaryof a statementabout Brutus's intention:that he was resolvedto save the Republic at all costs. Only
because he accepts that statementdoes an historiango on to assertor presupposethe singularhypotheticalwhichis the logical link betweenthe initial
conditionand the event to be explained.
Anybody who denies that historicalexplanationsexhibit connectionsbetween initial conditionsand the events to be explainedmust deny that statements aboutagents'intentionsexhibitsuch connections.That denialcould be
justifiedonly by invokingsome naturalistor materialistmetaphysicaldoctrine, accordingto which deciding, intending, and other mental acts are
somehow reducibleto "natural"events, which are in principle explicable
accordingto the laws of the naturalsciences.While I believe that such doctrinescan be refuted(Donagan[7], 289-97), for the presentit is enoughthat
historiansin practicerejectthem.
sor Dray had proposeda theory of historicalexplanationin which the connectionbetweenthe initialconditionsand the act to be explainedis provided
by a statementthat that act was the (rational)thing to do in those circumstances(Dray [8], 131-7; [10], 108-10). My debt to Dray is so large that to
dwell on our differenceswould be as ungratefulas it is distasteful.However,
some clarificationis needed.
An historian achieves the understandinghe seeks, accordingto Dray,
"when[he] can see the reasonablenessof a man'sdoing what this agentdid,
given the beliefs and purposesreferredto; his action can then be explained
as havingbeen an 'appropriate'one" (Dray [10], 108). Hempelhas objected
that this is not enough.Even if it be concededthat it wouldbe reasonableto
do what the agentdid, given that he had certainbeliefs and purposes,it does
not follow that the agent acted reasonably.He may have done what he did
as a result of thinkingwhich was slipshod or even logically absurd (cf.
Scriven [27], 349-50). Hence Hempel has arguedthat a Dravian "rational
explanation"requiresa furtherassumption:that the agentwas rationalwhen
he acted (Hempel [14], 12).
If Hempel is right, the full schema of a Dravian rational explanation
would be:
A was in a situationof type C
A was a rationalagent
In a situationof type C a rationalagentwill do x
Therefore,A did x (Hempel[14], 12).
There are two strongobjectionsto this schema.First, as Hempelhas shown,
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ALAN DONAGAN
? 10. ConcludingRemarks
Those who voice such views as are developedin this essay expect to be put
down as hostile to the advanceof the social sciences,if not to naturalscience
itself. ProfessorMandelbaumhas named us "reactionists",to signify that,
althoughnot idealists,we have reactedagainstPopper and Hempel; and he
has creditedus with assuming"that a properanalysisof historicalexplanation must conform to the statementswhich historians actually make...
(Mandelbaum[18], 229). He has even traced our lineage to "that newer
branchof analyticphilosophywhich may be called ordinary-usageanalysis",
which he distinguishesfrom "the science-orientedform of analysiswhich the
covering-lawtheoristsrepresented"(loc. cit., 230).
To oppose "ordinary-usageanalysis",which, if anything, is a method
of analysis,to "science-oriented"
analysis,which is the analysisof a certain
subject-matter,is a mistake.Nor do I think that Dray, any more than myself, holds that a properanalysisof historicalexplanationmust "conformto
the statementswhich historians actually make" in the sense of assuming
that historians always say exactly what they mean. The difference between the reactionistsand at least some advocatesof the coveringlaw thesis
is not that the latter are "science-oriented"
and the formernot, but that the
former respect the scientific status of historiographyas it is, whereas the
latter are so preoccupiedwith naturalscience that they will not acknowledge
25
(Minneapolis, 1962).
26
ALAN DONAGAN
14. -,'Rational
Action', Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, XXXV (1962).
15.
16.
This consists of the first seven sections of 'Studiesin the Logic of Explanation', Philosophy of Science, XV (1948).
23.
The Open Society and its Enemies (3rd ed. London, 1957).
The Poverty of Historicism (London, 1957).
,
,
1962).
27.