Hempel, Carl

"Science is the systematic pursuit of understanding."

"Understanding requires integration of knowledge."

"Truth constrains meaningful discourse."

"Science aims at generality; history at individuality. Both are legitimate pursuits of knowledge."

"The demarcation between science and non-science is not always sharp and clear-cut."

"A scientific law must be testable and capable of being refuted by experience."

"Explanation in science requires subsumption under general laws."

"The covering law model provides a rational reconstruction of scientific explanation."

"Probabilistic laws can serve as the basis for legitimate scientific explanations."

"Induction alone cannot guarantee scientific knowledge; we require deductive reasoning as well."

"The uniformity of nature is a presupposition we must make to engage in science at all."

"Scientific concepts must be operationally defined to have empirical meaning."

"A hypothesis is scientific only if it can be empirically tested and potentially falsified."

"Explanation and prediction have the same logical structure in science."

"The purpose of science is to describe and explain natural phenomena systematically."

"We cannot observe theoretical entities directly; we infer their existence from observable effects."

"Confirmation of a theory requires more than mere consistency with the data."

"The context of discovery differs fundamentally from the context of justification."

"Scientific understanding requires that we grasp why something must be the case."

"A merely successful prediction does not constitute a genuine scientific explanation."

"Laws of nature differ from accidental generalizations in their modal force."

"The problem of induction remains central to understanding scientific method."

"A scientific explanation must invoke general laws, not merely particular facts."

"Explanation requires nomological necessity—subsumption under exceptionless laws."

"Anomalies in science can sometimes lead to revolutionary new theories."

"The rationality of science lies in its self-correcting mechanisms."

"We must distinguish between what a theory says and how we interpret it."

"Scientific progress is not linear; it often involves conceptual revisions."

"The evidence never uniquely determines a theory; underdetermination is endemic."

"Explanation differs from mere description by invoking causal or nomological principles."