tore nordenstam explanation and understanding in the history of art

It should also be clear by now that the intentionalist pattern cannot accommodate all the
things that are referred to as “explanations” in art-historical contexts. Explanations in the
sense of “interpretations”, like those in examples 1 - 3, fall outside the scope of this
pattern, and so do the explanations hinted at in Example 7 (how-possible- and why-
notpossible-explanations). The kind of explanation illustrated by Example 8, on the other
hand, can be shown to rest on the intentionalist pattern, as I shall show in section 2.4
below.
Although the intentionalist pattern seems to fit at least one type of explanation to be
found in the human sciences fairly well, and certainly much better than the deductivenomological
pattern seems to do, a number of critics have drawn attention to various
theoretical difficulties which the intentionalist pattern gives rise to. We have already
considered Hempel’s attempt to reduce Dray’s version of the intentionalist pattern (in one
of its interpretations) to the deductive-nomological pattern. Raimo Tuomela has made a
similar attempt to show that von Wright’s version of the intentionalist pattern should be
reduced to the deductive-nomological pattern.
Tuomela starts from the more elaborate version of von Wright’s model quoted above:
(P1) From now on A intends to bring about X at time t.
(P2) From now on A considers that unless he does Y no later than at time t', he
cannot bring about X at time t.
(C) Therefore, no later than when he thinks time t' has arrived, A sets himself to
do Y, unless he forgets about time or is prevented.
This pattern ought to be replaced with the following one, according to Tuomela:
(P1) From now on A intends to bring about X at time t.
(P2) From now on A considers that unless he does Y no later than at time t', he
cannot bring about X at time t.