Cartwright On Explanation And Idealization |
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Authors: | Mehmet Elgin and Elliott Sober |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 5185 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI, 53706, U.S.A. |
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Abstract: | Nancy Cartwright (1983, 1999) argues that (1) the fundamental laws of physics are true when and only when appropriate ceteris paribus modifiers are attached and that (2) ceteris paribus modifiers describe conditions that are almost never satisfied. She concludes that when the fundamental laws of physics are
true, they don't apply in the real world, but only in highly idealized counterfactual situations. In this paper, we argue
that (1) and (2) together with an assumption about contraposition entail the opposite conclusion — that the fundamental laws
of physics do apply in the real world. Cartwright extracts from her thesis about the inapplicability of fundamental laws the conclusion
that they cannot figure in covering-law explanations. We construct a different argument for a related conclusion — that forward-directed
idealized dynamical laws cannot provide covering-law explanations that are causal. This argument is neutral on whether the
assumption about contraposition is true. We then discuss Cartwright's simulacrum account of explanation, which seeks to describe
how idealized laws can be explanatory.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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