Introduction 3
Part I. Introductory Essays 11
1. A New Look at Causality 13
2. Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Science 25
3. Comets, Pollen, and Dreams Some Reflections on Scientific
Explanation 50
4. Scientific Explanation 68
5. The Importance of Scientific Understanding 79
Part II. Scientific Explanation 93
6. A Third Dogma of Empiricism 95
7. Causal and Theoretical Explanation 108
8. Why Ask, “Why?”? 125
9. Deductivism Visited and Revisited 142
10. Explanatory Asymmetry 164
11. Van Fraassen on Explanation 178
Part III. Causality 191
12. An “At-At” Theory of Causal Influence 193
13. Causal Propensities 200
14. Probabilistic Causality 208
15. Intuitions—Good and Not-So-Good 233
16. Causality Without Counterfactuals 248
17. Indeterminacy, Indeterminism, and Quantum Mechanics 261
Part IV. Concise Overviews 283
18. Causality 285
19. Scientific Explanation 302
20. Scientific Explanation 320
Part V. Applications to Other Disciplines 331
21. Alternative Models of Scientific Explanation 333
22. Causality in Archaeological Explanation 347
23. Explanation in Archaeology 356
24. The Formulation of Why-Questions 364
25. Quasars, Causality, and Geometry 369
26. Dreams of a Famous Physicist 385
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