Causes, natural laws and scientific explanations

In recent years, the issue of scientific explanation has been approached from conflicting positions which suggest promising avenues of «negotiation» amongst ideas that until recently seemed incompatible. One prominent case along these lines is Wesley Salmon’s position, in the sense of accepting as «complementary» as opposed to «excluding» first the conception of explanation as unification, and secondly the mechanical-causal conception, previously upheld as unique and excluding by Salmon himself. I shall try to explain ideas that do not attempt to «break» the «armistice» to which I just referred, but to object to part of the mechanical-causal conception. My objection is not an attempt to deny this type of explanation, rather to highlight doubts about part of the mechanical-causal foundation, suggesting instead a foundation based only on scientific facts and laws.