Abstract
John Earman and John T. Roberts advocate a challenging and radical claim regarding the semantics of laws in the special sciences: the statistical account. According to this account, a typical special science law “asserts a certain precisely defined statistical relation among well-defined variables” Earman and Roberts (Synthese, 118, 439–478, 1999) and this statistical relation does not require being hedged by ceteris paribus conditions. In this paper, we raise two objections against the attempt to cash out the content of special science generalizations in statistical terms.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Probabilities are interpreted as actual frequencies here, for a discussion of this point see Reutlinger (manuscript).
- 3.
When characterizing dispositional terms, Rudolf Carnap already refers to an “escape clause” of the form “unless there are disturbing factors or provided the environment is in a normal state” and “usual circumstances in a laboratory” (Carnap 1956, p. 59).
- 4.
Schurz (2001, 2002) provides an evolution-theoretic argument for the statistical consequence thesis. A discussion of this argument would exceed the length of this paper (cf. also Reutlinger et~al. 2011, Sect. 8.1). Instead we focus only on the conclusion (i.e. the normic account as a special case of the statistical account).
- 5.
The argument also affects the positive-correlation-reading if the positive correlations in questions are high correlation and correlations are interpreted as actual frequencies.
- 6.
- 7.
Conditions such as the “proximity of progressive urban political parties” (Earman and Roberts 1999, p. 468).
- 8.
- 9.
Ironically for Earman and Roberts, Hempel (1988, p. 152f) argues for this point against Carnap.
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Hüttemann, A., Reutlinger, A. (2013). Against the Statistical Account of Special Science Laws. In: Karakostas, V., Dieks, D. (eds) EPSA11 Perspectives and Foundational Problems in Philosophy of Science. The European Philosophy of Science Association Proceedings, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01306-0_15
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