The Logic of Historical Explanation by Clayton Roberts - 9780271014432

The Logic of Historical ExplanationAuthor(s): Clayton Roberts\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, United States\nImprint: Pennsylvania State University Press\nISBN-13: 9780271014432, 978-0271014432\nSynopsis\nEver since 1942, when Carl Hempel declared that historical events are explained by subsuming them under laws governing the occurrence of similar events, philosophers have debated the validity of explanations based on \""covering laws.\"" In The Logic of Historical Explanation, Clayton Roberts provides a key to understanding the role of covering laws in historical explanation. He does so by distinguishing between their use at the macro- and micro- levels, a distinction that no other scholar has made. \n\nRoberts contends that the positivists were right to believe that covering laws are indispensable in historical explanations but wrong to think that these laws apply to macro-events (such as wars and revolutions). Similarly, the humanists were right t.