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Causes and Laws: The Asymmetry Puzzle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Henry Byerly
Henry Byerly*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
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How are causes and laws related? Some attempt to analyze causal relations in terms of laws, others view causal explanation as quite distinct from explanation using laws. My analysis of the relations between causes and laws focuses on cases such as the simple pendulum law where asymmetries in causal relations between quantities are not reflected in the functional dependencies in the law equations. The asymmetry puzzle has elicited a variety of accounts which reflect quite different views on the relation between causes and laws and their roles in scientific explanation. Finding none of the usual accounts satisfying, I offer an explication based on some distinctions in the analysis of the relevant causes that are not commonly heeded. I criticize the very notion of causal law and examine some implications of my account for ceteris paribus problems which arise in attempts to give realist interpretations of scientific theories.

Type
Part IX. Belief, Cause and Induction
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 545 - 555
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1990

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