 Selected Readings. van Fraassen (1980, especially Chapter Six) and Achinstein (1983) are classic statements of pragmatic approaches to explanation. These pragmatic accounts are discussed and criticized in Salmon (1989). van Fraassen’s account is also discussed in Kitcher and Salmon (1987). De Regt and Dieks (2005) is a recent defense of what the authors describe as a “contextual” account of scientific understanding and which engages with some of the themes in the “pragmatics of explanation” literature.