 Yet most prominently, Salmon was a realist about causality in scientific explanation, although his realist explanation of causality drew ample criticism.Still, his books on scientific explanation itself were landmarks of the 20th century's philosophy of science, and solidified recognition of causality's important roles in scientific explanation, whereas causality itself has evaded satisfactory elucidation by anyone.Under logical empiricism's influence, especially Carl Hempel's work on the "covering law" model of scientific explanation, most philosophers had viewed scientific explanation as stating regularities, but not identifying causes.