Multiple Choice Exam

Carl G. Hempel, "Studies in the Logic of Explanation"

Please use a form 882-ES Scan-Tron Card to record your answers. Choose the best answer to each of the following questions.

1. According to Hempel, to explain an event is to:

• A. subsume it under a statistical law
• B. subsume it under a causal law
• C. reduce the unfamiliar to the familiar
• D. make it understandable psychologically
• E. none of the above

2. According to Hempel, an explanation of a "general regularity" consists in:

• A. showing that it is an inductive generalization from experience
• B. deducing it from a more comprehensive set of laws
• C. proving that it is true
• D. all of the above
• E. none of the above

3. According to Hempel, the explanandum of an explanation must:

• A. contain a list of antecedent conditions
• B. be sound
• C. be true
• D. be a logical consequence of the explanans
• E. all of the above

4. According to Hempel, the explanans of an explanation must contain:

• A. at least one tautology
• B. at least one statement which is not a law
• C. at least one statement which is a law
• D. sentences which express specific antecedent conditions
• E. none of the above

5. According to Hempel, the explanans of an explanation must contain at least one:

• A. analytic sentence
• B. a prioristatement
• C. synthetic statement
• D. all of the above
• E. none of the above

6. According to Hempel, a necessary logical condition for an explanation to be sound is that the explanans contain statements which:

• A. are confirmed by all of the relevant evidence available
• B. are not laws
• C. are testable by experiment or observation
• D. express antecedent conditions
• E. all of the above

7. According to Hempel,an explanation is "inadequate" or "incomplete" if:

• A. the explanandum is not true
• B. the explanans is not true
• C. the explanandum could not have been predicted given the explanans
• D. the explanans is "unfamiliar"
• E. none of the above

8. According to Hempel, scientific explanations provide:

• A. understanding in the psychological sense of a feeling of empathy
• B. understanding in the cognitive sense
• C. a reduction of the unfamiliar to the familiar
• D. all of the above
• E. none of the above.

9. According to Hempel, a statement is a law if and only if:

• A. it has empirical content
• B. it is a tautology
• C. it is true
• D. it is lawlike
• E. none of the above

10. According to Hempel, fundamental lawlike statements must:

• A. be true
• B. contain only "purely qualitative predicates"
• C. be analytic
• D. all of the above
• E. none of the above