Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Lawlikeness: Here we are concerned with the status of statements which describe regularities but may not be laws of nature. See also Laws of nature, Regularities, Regularity theory, Laws._____________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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Gerhard Schurz on Lawlikeness - Dictionary of Arguments
I 237 Laws of nature/natural laws/Schurz: Laws of nature do not refer to specific physical systems but express what is valid for any systems in all physically possible universes. E.g. Newton's nuclear axioms (E.g. total force = mass times acceleration, E.g. force = counterforce, E.g. gravitational force is proportional to the product of masses). Only if they are used system conditions, which explicitly list the present forces, we get a concretely solvable differential equation. There are only a few fundamental ones and they are found only in physics. However, most of the laws of physics are: Def system laws/Schurz: involve concrete contingent system conditions. Therefore they are not physically necessary but contingent. Example law of fall, example law of pendulum, example law of planets etc. Law-likeness/law-like/Schurz: a) in the broad sense: the law-like character of spatiotemporally limited general propositions is gradual. In this sense not only the laws of nature but also all system laws are law-like. Counterfactual conditionals: if we would agree to them are an indication of law-likeness. Problem: the counterfactual conditional also characterizes spatiotemporally bounded laws Ex "All ravens are black". Counterfactual conditionals/Schurz: on the other hand: we would not say Ex "If this apple had not been in the basket, it would not be green." >Counterfactual conditionals, >Laws of nature, >Laws. I 237 Similarity-metris/Possible Worlds/Counterfactual Conditional/RescherVsLewis/Schurz: (Lewis 1973b(1)): for philosophy of science, Lewis' logical semantics for counterfactual conditionals yields little, because the substantive interpretation of the similarity metric between Possible Worlds presupposes that we already know a distinction between laws and contingent facts. (Stegmüller 1969(2), 320-334). I 238 Law-like/law-like/Schurz: b) in the narrower sense: = physical necessity (to escape the vagueness resp. graduality of the broad term). Problem: Not all spatiotemporally unrestricted laws are law-like in the narrow sense. Universal but not physically necessary: Ex "No lump of gold has a diameter of more than one kilometer". Universality: is not a sufficient, but a necessary condition for law-likeness. E.g. the universal proposition "All apples in this basket are red" is not universal, even if one replaces it by its contraposition: Ex "All non-red objects are not apples in this basket". (Hempel 1965(3), 341). Strong Hume-thesis/Hume/Schurz: universality is a sufficient condition for law-likeness. SchurzVs: this is wrong Weak-Hume thesis/Schurz: universality is a necessary condition for law-likeness. >Causality/Hume. Stronger/weaker/(s): the claim that a condition is sufficient is stronger than that it is necessary. BhaskarVWeak Hume-thesis. Solution/Carnap/Hempel: Def Maxwell conditional/law-like: laws of nature or nomological predicates must not contain an analytic reference to particular individuals or spacetime points (spacetime points). This is much stronger than the universality condition. >Stronger/weaker. Ex "All emeralds are grue": is spatiotemporally universal, but does not satisfy Maxwell's condition. >Grueness. I 239 Laws of nature/Armstrong: Thesis: Laws of nature are implication relations between universals. Therefore no reference to individuals. >Laws of nature/Armstrong, >Causality/Armstrong. Maxwell-Conditioning/Wilson/Schurz: (Wilson 1979): represent a physical symmetry principle: i.e. laws of nature must be invariant under translation of their time coordinates and translation or rotation of their space coordinates. From this, conservation laws can be obtained. Symmetry principles/principles/Schurz: physical symmetry principles are not a priori, but depend on experience! >Symmetries/Feynman, >Symmetries/Kanitscheider. Maxwell-condition/Schurz: is too weak for law-like character: e.g. "no lump of gold has a diameter of more than 1 km" also this universal theorem fulfills it. Law-likeness/Mill/Ramsey/Lewis/Schurz: proposal: all those general propositions which follow from those theories which produce the best unification of the set of all true propositions. (Lewis 1973b(1), 73). Vs: problem: it remains unclear why one should not add the proposition Bsp "No lump of gold has a diameter of more than 1 km". Because many true singular propositions also follow from it. Solution/Schurz: we need a clear notion of physical possibility. Problem: we have no consistent demarcation of natural laws and system laws. 1. Lewis, D. (1973b). Counterfactuals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell 2. Stegmüller, W. (1969). Probleme und Resultate der Wissenschaftstheorie und Analytischen Philosophie. Band I:Wissenschaftliche Erklärung und Begründung. Berlin: Springer. 3. Hempel, C. (1965). Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the Philosophy of Science, New York: Free Press._____________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. |
Schu I G. Schurz Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006 |
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> Counter arguments against Schurz
> Counter arguments in relation to Lawlikeness
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-19