20 .

T H E O RIES A ND THINGS
which is the essence of that interpretation,
shows that the Copenhagen School have tacitly
abandoned the search for the real mechanism of
nature. This school then denies that we are
entitled to assert the existence of anything other
than experimental results: (The exact gloss to
put on "real" here is a very deep philosophical
problem.) However, if someone decides to take
the advice expressed in P2 I do not think he
can be argued out of his position in the ordinary
way, by showing some hidden inconsistency, for
the consistent application of P2 is difficult but
possible. We can only try to show that P2 is in
some way inadequate. I shall not waste any ink
on frontal attacks on P2; rather my purpose is
to recommend P1 and hence demonstrate the
inadequacy of P2. I shall attempt this by first
putting Campbell's views in a modern form,
and then supplying some necessary addenda
which are required to account for more subtle
rµoves in scientific thinking.
We must begin by getting clear about the
notion of an explanation. The sort of thing we
take a scientific explanation to be will at least
partly determine the attitude we take to current
problems. Though a key notion, "explanation"
is dangerously vague. Two sorts of explanation
need to be distinguished:
( I ) Minimal Explanation. We say that an
event has been explained when we have identi­
fied its cause. To identify the cause of an event
is to subsume it, as philosophers say, under a
general law. An example will help to make this
 MOD E L S TO M E C H A N I S M S 21
clear. If you wam: to explain the movement of
the tides you can do so by identifying the action
of the moon as their major cause. To justify this
choice of cause you refer the tides to the
general law of gravitational attraction, indenti­
fying the oceans with what is attracted and the
moon with the source of gravitational attraction
in this instance. From the same application of
the same law you can explain the retardation of
the moon's motion by the identification of tidal
friction as its cause.
( 2) Scientific Explanation. Causal explanations
are not usually regarded as sufficient in science.
Attempts are made to explain not only events
but the laws which describe regular concomi­
tances among events. For a scientific explana­
tion you need to postulate a mechanism, real or
imaginary, which accounts for, say, the correla­
tion between the position of the moon and the
state of the tides. The mechanism in this case is
very simple: it is that the moon attracts the
oceans; in this case the scientific explanation
for tidal phenomena is built into the causal
explanation above. Sometimes the causal
explanation and the scientific explanation are
not stated together.
For instance, it is not sufficient for a scientific
explanation of lung cancer to show that its
incidence bears a high correlation to the
number of cigarettes smoked, though this will
give a minimal explanation of why people in
general and Mr X in particular have con-_
tracted the disease. For a scientific explanation
22 T H E O RI E S AND T H I N G S
It IS also necessary to give an account of the
mechanism by which heavy smoking has this
disagreeable outcome. If a minimal explana­
tion were all that was required in science, we
should, for instance, have stopped short at
Mendel's Laws and not gone on to discover the
mechanism of heredity, its physical basis, in
the properties and structures of the nucleic
proteins.
Since on the whole we don't discover mech­
anisms, but check hypotheses about mechan..
isms, we need an expression for an hypothetical
mechanism. The current standard expression is
model. But the word "model" is ambiguous
between "ideal" and "simulacrum" . As far as
this stu ?y is concerned I shall use the following
express10ns:
Hypothetical mechanism - model
Mechanism from which the model IS
derived -- parent situation.
The terminology is used in this way : "The
simple kinetic theory of gases uses a model based
on molecules whose properties are derived by
analogy from the mechanical properties of
common material obj ects, these constituting the
parent situation. The model is linked to observ­
able facts by transformation rules or bridge­
statements which link properties of gases with
features of the model; for instance, 'pressure is
average rate of change of momentum at phase
boundary'." For a full understanding of what
a scientific explanation involves we must give