Causal/Mechanical and Lawful Explanation

Wesley proposed causal/mechanical account for scientific explanation.He thinks causation is prior to explanation,and some causations may be not lawful,therefore causation prior to laws as well.The paper tries to tackle Salmon's account from four aspects:(1) Salmon uses mark transmission as the criterion distinguishing causal processes from pseudo processes.However,it could not avoid the concept of causation,therefore will meet the problem of circularity.(2) Salmon acknowledges singular causation.But we have to identify causation by scientific laws.(3) Causality could be express in term of laws,while not all laws are causal.For example,we could lawfully express the remote correlation between identical particles in quantum mechanics,though there is no causation-at-a-distance.(4) Although Salmon regards scientific explanation as ontic conception,as a kind of human practice,it should be epistemic.Even if ontologically Salmon's bottom-up approach is right,epistemologically,scientific explanation should be top-down.