Unification Explanation

To explain something is to unify it with the other things that we know.

This model has not been developed in great detail. The main references are Friedman 1974 and Kitcher 1981.

Issues

There is not much literature on this model, and so no references for the issues.

The presentations have mainly concentrated on accounting for causal explanation: how do functional explanations fit in?

There may be more than one way of unifying a given explanandum with our other knowledge, and the choice may be made on pragmatic grounds.