Laws are conditionals

被引:0
作者
Toby Friend
机构
[1] University College London,Science and Technology Studies
来源
European Journal for Philosophy of Science | 2016年 / 6卷
关键词
Laws nature; Logical form; Conditionals; System; Equations;
D O I
暂无
中图分类号
学科分类号
摘要
The ubiquitous schema ‘All Fs are Gs’ dominates much philosophical discussion on laws but rarely is it shown how actual laws mentioned and used in science are supposed to fit it. After consideration of a variety of laws, including those obviously conditional and those superficially not conditional (such as equations), I argue that we have good reason to support the traditional interpretation of laws as conditionals of some quantified form with a single object variable. I show how this conclusion impacts on the status of ‘system laws’ and the significance of having only one object variable with regard to the relationship between laws and causal relations.
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页码:123 / 144
页数:21
相关论文
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