In this paper, I explicate desiderata for accounts of explanation in historiography. I argue that a fully developed account of explanation in historiography must explicate many explanation-related notions in order to be satisfactory. In particular, it is not enough that an account defines the basic structure of explanation. In addition, the account of explanation must be able to explicate notions such as minimal explanation, complete explanation, historiographical explanation, explanatory depth, explanatory competition, and explanatory goal. Moreover, the account should also tell how explananda can be chosen in a motivated way. Furthermore, the account should be able to clarify notions that are closely connected with explanation such as historical contingency. Finally, it is important that the account is able to recognize when explanation-related notions and issues are so closely intertwined that we are in danger of not seeing the differences between them. In other words, I argue that a satisfactory account of explanation in historiography must have the power to explicate central explanation-related notions and to clarify discussions where the differences between the notions are obscure. In order to explicate these desiderata, I formulate a (version of the) counterfactual account of explanation and show how that account is able to explicate explanation-related notions and clarify issues that are connected with historiographical explanations. The success of the counterfactual account suggests that historiographical explanations do not differ fundamentally from explanations in many other fields.

在本文中，我解释了史学中解释的需要。我认为，一个完整的史学解释解释必须阐明许多与解释相关的概念才能令人满意。特别是，一个帐户定义解释的基本结构是不够的。此外，解释的说明必须能够解释最小解释、完全解释、历史解释、解释深度、解释竞争和解释目标等概念。此外，该帐户还应说明如何以有动机的方式选择解释。此外，该帐户应该能够澄清与历史偶然性等解释。最后，重要的是，当与解释相关的概念和问题如此紧密地交织在一起，以至于我们有看不到它们之间差异的危险时，该帐户能够识别出来。换句话说，我认为，对史学解释的令人满意的解释必须有能力解释与解释相关的中心概念，并在概念之间的差异模糊不清的地方澄清讨论。为了阐明这些需要，我制定了一个（版本的）解释的反事实解释，并展示了该解释如何能够解释与解释相关的概念并澄清与历史解释相关的问题。反事实解释的成功表明，史学解释与许多其他领域的解释没有根本区别。