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For Fundamentalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Carl Hoefer
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Abstract

In this paper I defend fundamental physical laws from the arguments mounted by Nancy Cartwright in her (1999) book The Dappled World (and other publications). I argue, positively, that we have a good deal of evidence for mathematical laws—not just causal capacities—underlying many natural phenomena. I also argue, negatively, that Cartwright's main arguments unfairly demand that a fundamentalist be a strong reductionist.

Type
Laws and Causation
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 70 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2003 , pp. 1401 - 1412
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank Craig Callender, John Worrall, Jordi Cat, Paul Teller, Daniel Quesada, and Mauricio Suárez for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I owe a special debt to Nancy Cartwright, whose extensive comments led to much-needed corrections and deletions.

References

Anderson, Phillip W. (2001), “Science: A ‘Dappled World’ or a ‘Seamless Web’?” (essay review of The Dappled World), Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 32 (3): 487–494..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy (1999), The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy (2000), “Against the Completability of Science”, in Stone, M. W. F. and Wolff, Jonathan (eds.), The Proper Ambition of Science. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Feynman, Richard P. (1965), The Character of Physical Law. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand (1912), “On the Notion of Cause”, in Mysticism and Logic. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar