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The Law-Idealization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Paul Teller
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Abstract

There are few, perhaps no known, exact, true, general laws. Some of the work of generalization is carried by ceteris paribus generalizations. I suggest that many models continue such work in more complex form, with the idea of ceteris paribus conditions thought of as extended to more general conditions of application. I use the term regularity guide to refer collectively to cp-generalizations and such regularity-purveying models. Laws in the traditional sense can then be thought of as idealizations, which idealize away from the conditions of application of regularity guides. If we keep clearly in mind the status of laws as such idealizations, problems surrounding traditional topics—such as lawlikeness, corresponding counterfactuals and modality—no longer look to be intractable.

Type
Laws, Possibility, and the New Instrumentalism
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 71 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers , December 2004 , pp. 730 - 741
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Readers will note important points of comparison between ideas in this paper and Cartwright's 1999, especially in Sections 2 and 6. To whatever extent the present might constitute an elaboration of Cartwright's metaphor of a “nomological machine,” I will be very happy if this elaboration further illuminates the subject.

References

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Teller, Paul (forthcoming), “The FineWright Theory”.Google Scholar