Abstract
The better best system account, short BBSA, is a variation on Lewis’s theory of laws. The difference to the latter is that the BBSA suggests that best system analyses can be executed for any fixed set of properties (instead of perfectly natural properties only). This affords the possibility to launch system analyses separately for the set of biological properties yielding the set of biological laws, chemical properties yielding chemical laws, and so on for the other special sciences. As such, the BBSA remains silent about possible interrelations between these freestanding sets of laws. In this paper, I explicate an emergence relation between them which preserves the autonomy or novelty of each special science’s laws but also shows their dependence: the autonomy of each level’s generalisations is given because nomicity is conferred to them system intrinsic, their dependence is established via their supervenience on lower level laws. As will be shown, the autonomy of special science laws is further strengthened by their ceteris paribus character.
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Notes
Developed, amongst others, by: Taylor (1993, 97), Roberts (1999), Albert (2000), Halpin (2003), Schrenk (2007, 2008, 2014), Loewer (2007), Cohen and Callender (2009) and Callender and Cohen (2010). For valuable discussions and critique of (various aspects of) the BBSA see Frisch (2014), Weslake (2014) and Backmann and Reutlinger (2014).
Mine was to formulate a theory for special science ceteris paribus laws. I come to this specific reason later. Another was to avoid being committed to the existence of (perfectly) natural properties.
It is necessary to fix a set of predicates/properties for and prior to each best system competition. The specific problems that occur if this is not done need not be discussed here but see Schrenk (2017, 139–141) for a detailed exposition.
Some worries surrounding the BBSA’s laissez-faire policy regarding vocabulary sets might have to be dispelled. There is a certain threat of subjectivity if it is up to us to choose property sets. However, objectivity of systems is secured in two places and, thus, a relativism to the degree of social construction of the laws or other worrisome anti-realistic features that would be very undesirable for a theory of lawhood are avoided: (i) Nature, although she does not dictate the vocabulary, still dictates which discernible patterns can be seen through the lens of each vocabulary. That is, given a vocabulary, the concrete regularities that exist are factually and objectively given by nature. (ii) We can assume (as Lewis does in Lewis 1973, 73) that, for any vocabulary set, the winners of BBSAs already objectively exist as abstract (Platonic) objects (see also the helpful goddess metaphor in the main text). That is, choosing a vocabulary set to be systematised equals picking the according best systems from what is abstractly and objectively there. (Note aside that some vocabularies will possibly be so inapt to systematise the world—because there are no concrete regularities to be seen through their lenses—that no winning system, far ahead of its competitors, will abstractly exist.)
Of course, Lewis acknowledged this: Lewis (1987, 122).
This is a belief shared by most proponents of the BBS theory. A clear statement to the point is in Callender and Cohen (2010, 441–442).
The autonomy might be substantially weakened if strong reductionist theses turn out to be true, that is, when the so generated special science laws turn out to be also (somehow) entailed by the fundamental laws (plus other assumptions). I come to this point in Sect. 4.6 “Contingency reconsidered”; (cf. again Callender and Cohen 2010, Fn. 13).
Note again that, in (i) and (ii), I explicate what would have to be the case for the higher level laws to be justifiably called dependent on lower level laws. I do not make the factual claim that this is actually the case for all or some of the higher BBSA laws.
Exemplary for such a relation take one of Jaegwon Kim’s definitions: “A-properties […] supervene on B-properties if and only if for any possible world w and any individuals x and y in w, if x and y are B-indiscernible in w, then they are A-indiscernible in w.” (Kim 1993, 109–130).
Note aside that both the implicit order of quantifies (∀x ∃C1–Cn…) and the varying n and m indicate the multiple realisability of Fs and Gs. Being important in its own right this will have a special relevance in 4.4.
For such a move we find again support in the standard literature on emergence: “Put in abstract terms the emergent theory asserts that there are certain wholes, composed (say) of constituents A, B, and C in a relation R to each other; that all wholes composed of constituents of the same kind as A, B, and C in relations of the same kind as R have certain characteristic properties; that A, B, and C are capable of occurring in other kinds of complex where the relation is not of the same kind as R; and that the characteristic properties of the whole R(A, B, C) cannot, even in theory, be deduced from the most complete knowledge of the properties of A, B, and C in isolation or in other wholes which are not of the form R(A, B, C).” (Beckermann 1992, 102) The latter part (about the non-deducibility) is not important here but the first part about wholes being composed of constituents is.
If we so wish we could even define the Fs and Gs and Pi extensionally as subsets of D, D2, D3, etc.
Take, for example, F to be the property of being a haemoglobin molecule (and G the property of being able to bind oxygen). Now, should a macromolecule x1’s (atomic) parts C1,…,Cn and a second macromolecule x2‘s respective (atomic) parts C1′,…,Cn′ share all P i (being a carbon atom, a hydrogen atom, etc. including structural properties of sets of these respective parts) then x1 is a haemoglobin molecule iff x2 is a haemoglobin molecule (likewise for G, i.e., being able to bind oxygen).
Further refinements to the definition might add time variables to the law statement(s): ∀x, t (F(x, t) ⊃ G(x, t + ∆t)). I take it that this complication (which I omit for reasons of simplicity) would not jeopardize the general idea: Consider four-dimensionalism where objects are extended in space and time and where their temporal parts, just as their spatial parts, occupy various subregions of the total region of spaceime. On such a view, the dependence claims from above are simply made on four-dimensional spacetime rather than on our 3D-domain.
Another extension could widen the supervenience base to entities extrinsic to the Fs and Gs (or turn otherwise to more global supervenience claims instead) for some higher level properties might not supervene as locally and intrinsically as here depicted. (I owe this thought to Toby Friend) Note that this would, per se, not render the more restricted approach here described useless: there would just be even more possibilities for emergence than here envisaged.
It is an interesting question what a biological best system analysis delivers for a lifeless world, that is, for uninstantiated biological properties B1–Bn (i.e., for biological predicates with empty extensions). No universally quantified conditional would be false but it is unclear how one set of such voidly satisfied conditionals would stand out as the simplest and strongest amongst other such sets and, thus, be the winning team of laws. Would it be, for reasons of simplicity, the empty set? This would meet the intuition that in a lifeless world there are no biological laws.
A referee made me realise that whether this point carries weight depends on the nomic status of the initial conditions. On the Albert-Loewer picture the initial conditions are themselves nomic. Therefore, in this view, higher level laws’ dependence on initial conditions just is dependence on fundamental level laws.
Other examples are the Hardy–Weinberg Principle which states that both allele and genotype frequencies in a population remain constant, that is, they are in equilibrium from generation to generation, unless specific disturbing influences are introduced. Mendel’s first law is that every individual possesses a pair of alleles for any particular trait and each parent passes a randomly selected copy (allele) of only one of these to its offspring, ceteris paribus.
Or at least not a specific difficulty occurring only for BBSAs with laws with exceptions. If you are in general opposed to a metaphysical approach to laws already Lewis's original best system idea is not for you.
You could, for sure, opt for sets with F* predicates. As said in the beginning, a BBSA can be launched upon any set of predicates.
If you opt for sets with predicates like F* which, tracing the more fundamental laws and properties, generate strict regularities, more straightforward reductions to systems below are likely.
Note that my arguing here with Fodor and Dennett against the “F*s-strictification” strategy is in no friction with the “completer-account” I introduced in 4.4.1. This is because the completed strict regularities from 4.4.1 only figure in the omniscient being’s platonic realm. They are, so too speak, the truthmakers of (but not identical to) the down to earth (incomplete) cp-laws. The F* strategy, on the other hand, is meant to turn the scientists’ cp-laws themselves into strict laws.
I wish to thank Max Bialek, Toby Friend, Siegfried Jaag, Christian Loew, all members of the DFG Group FOR1063, and two anonymous referees for their friendly, constructive advice and their valuable comments. Thanks are also due to the participants at the following workshops and colloquia: Stockholm’s and Marburg’s institutes colloquia 2016, the Metaphysics of Science conference in Geneva 2016, the Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftsphilosophie conference in Düsseldorf 2016, the Emergence Workshop in Leeds 2015, Gerhard Schurz’s and Albert Newen’s research colloquia in, respectively, Düsseldorf and Bochum 2015. I am especially grateful to my fellow investigators Alexander Reutlinger and Juha Saatsi for their advice: The paper was written as a contribution to our Emergence and Laws group (2014–2015) which was part of the Durham Emergence Project and financially supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
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Schrenk, M. The Emergence of Better Best System Laws. J Gen Philos Sci 48, 469–483 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-017-9374-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-017-9374-z