Abstract
Our last chapter concluded with the suggestion that at least some of our laws of nature are the laws of our method of representing nature. The laws of mechanics, thus, are just the laws of the methods by the use of which we represent mechanical phenomena. Or, to put it another way, the laws of mechanics are the laws which relate our mechanical concepts. To this was appended the even more alarming thesis that, all this being so, the laws of mechanics are not facts about the world at all. Laws of nature are not facts about nature. Clearly, this needs support.
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Notes
- 1.
Hanson’s argument here is a close paraphrase of Toulmin’s (78–80).—WCH.
References
Toulmin, S. (1953). Philosophy of science. London: Hutchinson.
Wittgenstein, L. (1961). Tractatus logico-philosophicus. (D. F. Pears & B. F. McGuinness, Trans.). New York: Humanities Press.
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Lund, M.D. (2018). Laws, Truths, and Hypotheses. In: Lund, M.D. (eds) Perception and Discovery. Synthese Library, vol 389. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69745-1_20
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