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Full Idea
Hempel said every scientific explanation is potentially a prediction - it would have predicted the phenomenon in question, had it not already been known. But also the information used to make a prediction is potentially an explanation.
Gist of Idea
Explanatory facts also predict, and predictive facts also explain
Source
report of Carl Hempel (Aspects of Scientific Explanation [1965]) by Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science: Very Short Intro (2nd ed) 3
Book Ref
Okasha,Samir: 'Philosophy of Science: very short intro (2nd ed)' [OUP 2016], p.40
A Reaction
Sounds too neatly glib to be quite true. If you explain a single event there is nothing to predict. You might predict accurately from a repetitive pattern, with no understanding at all of the pattern.
| 22179 | Explanatory facts also predict, and predictive facts also explain [Hempel, by Okasha] |
| 6755 | For Hempel, explanations are deductive-nomological or probabilistic-statistical [Hempel, by Bird] |
| 17083 | The covering-law model is for scientific explanation; historical explanation is quite different [Hempel] |
| 13052 | Hempel rejects causation as part of explanation [Hempel, by Salmon] |
| 21507 | Scientific explanation aims at a unifying account of underlying structures and processes [Hempel] |