Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T14:15:47.851Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Some Recent Work on the Problem of Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Evan K. Jobe*
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky

Extract

It is widely agreed that ‘scientific law’ (or ‘law of nature’) is one of the key scientific terms which any adequate philosophy of science must attempt to clarify or define. The importance of the concept ‘law’ is made evident by the fact that the distinctive functions of science—explanation and prediction—are usually analyzed with reference to laws. Thus events are explained by showing that descriptions of them are deducible from laws (conjoined with suitable statements of “initial conditions”), and laws are utilized in deducing descriptions of unknown future events, thereby permitting their prediction. Moreover, it has recently become clear that the concept ‘law’ is relevant to the analysis of counterfactual conditionals, disposition terms, and the physical modalities. An adequate explication of ‘law’, then, will further the analysis of these important concepts.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1] Ayer, Alfred J.What is a Law of Nature?,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie, X (Fasicule 2, 1956), 144165.Google Scholar
[2] Braithwaite, Richard B. Scientific Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.Google Scholar
[3] Bunge, Mario. “Kinds and Criteria of Scientific Laws,” Philosophy of Science, XXVIII (July, 1961), 260281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] Hempel, Carl G. Review of Reichenbach's Nomological Statements and Admissible Operations. In: Journal of Symbolic Logic, XX (April 6, 1955), 5054.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5] Körner, S.On Laws of Nature,” Mind, LXII (April, 1953), 216229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6] Nagel, Ernest. Review of D. Williams' The Ground of Induction. In: The Journal of Philosophy, XLIV (December 4, 1947), 685693.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7] Nagel, Ernest. The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8] Pap, Arthur. “Disposition Concepts and Extensional Logic,” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. H. Feigl, M. Scriven, and G. Maxwell. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1958. II, 196224.Google Scholar
[9] Quine, Willard V. O. Word and Object. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1960.Google Scholar
[10] Reichenbach, Hans. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York: MacMillan, 1947.Google Scholar
[11] Reichenbach, Hans. Nomological Statements and Admissible Operations. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company, 1954.Google Scholar
[12] Sellars, Wilfred. “Counterfactuals, Dispositions, and the Causal Modalities,” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. H. Feigl, M. Scriven, and G. Maxwell. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958. II, 225308.Google Scholar