“Can There Be a Model of Explanation?” is reprinted by permission from Theory and Decision 13 (1981), 201-227.

Standard models of scientific explanation impose two requirements. One is that no sin­gular sentence or conjunction of such can entail the explanandum. The other is that the only empirical consideration in determining whether the explanans correctly explains the explanandum is the truth of the explanans; all other considerations are a priori. I argue that no model of explanation can satisfy these two conditions.

1.