Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Empirical laws: Empirical laws are scientific statements that describe how nature behaves. They are based on repeated observations and experiments, and they are generally considered to be reliable. - VsEmpirical laws One argument is that empirical laws are always subject to revision or refutation. As we learn more about the world, we may discover new evidence that contradicts existing empirical laws. See also Laws, Natural laws, Regularities, Observation, Evidence, Generalization, Generality, General validity._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Political Philosophy on Empirical Laws - Dictionary of Arguments
Gaus I 58 Empirical Laws/Political philosophy/Forbes: The analysis of political facts is often cast in terms of the relations between independent and dependent variables (...). >Theories, >Laws. Causality: Are any of these correlations more than just correlations - that is, evidence of causal connections? What are the necessary and/or sufficient conditions for the outcomes of interest?(1) Problems: (...) since the relevant cases are so few, the coding of one or two problematic ones (Spain’s status as a democracy in 1898, Finland’s status as an enemy of the Allied powers from 1941 to 1944) can have a substantial impact on the results of any statistical analysis. „Empirical laws“: Despite these difficulties, there is now a consensus that empirical research generally supports the hypothesis: joint democracy seems to be a sufficient condition for peaceful relations between states (for reviews of the literature see Chan, 1997(2); Ray, 1995(3); 1998(4); Russett, 1993(5); Russett and Oneal, 2001(6)). This now widely accepted ‘empirical law’ about ‘democratic dyads’ provides an outstanding example of statistically based causal theorizing in political science. ((s) For the philosophical discussions in relation to laws see >Laws, >Natural laws, >Causal laws.) 1. King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba (1994) Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2. Chan, Steve (1997) ‘In search of democratic peace: problems and promise’. Mershon International Studies Review, 41: 59–91. 3. Ray, James Lee (1995) Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. 4. Ray, James Lee (1998) ‘Does democracy cause peace?’ Annual Review of Political Science, 1: 27–46. 5. Russett, Bruce (1993) Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 6. Russett, Bruce and John R. Oneal (2001) Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations. New York: Norton. Forbes, H. Donald 2004. „Positive Political Theory“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Political Philosophy Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
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> Counter arguments against Political Philosophy
> Counter arguments in relation to Empirical Laws
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-28