Dear all, Next week's meeting of the Serious Metaphysics Group will take place on Wednesday, 23rd October, between 5.30 - 7.00pm in the Philosophy Faculty board room.
Our speaker is Luke Fenton-Glynn (UCL) on "Ceteris Paribus Laws and Minutis Rectis Laws" (abstract below). I look forward to seeing many of you there. You can find out the programme for the rest of the term by visiting the SMG website - http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/news_events/metaphysics.html Best wishes, Matthew Simpson Luke Fenton-Glynn - Ceteris Paribus Laws and Minutis Rectis Laws. Special science generalizations admit of exceptions. There are, moreover, prima facie difficulties in seeing how non-exceptionless generalizations can support counterfactuals, entail objective chances, underwrite predictions and relations of causation and explanation, and play other aspects of the law role. In this talk, I distinguish two different types of non-exceptionless 'law': namely ceteris paribus laws and minutis rectis laws. Roughly speaking, ceteris paribus 'laws' are scientific generalizations that hold in the absence of significant difference-making influence from outside the systems that they seek to characterize. Minutis rectis 'laws', by contrast, are scientific generalizations that hold only when the properties that they relate are realized in the right microphysical way. In the literature, the distinction between ceteris paribus laws and minutis rectis laws is seldom properly drawn. Yet it is an important distinction because the challenges involved in showing how minutis rectis generalizations can play the law role are quite different from those involved in showing how ceteris paribus generalizations are able to do so. I outline some potential strategies for seeking to meet those challenges. -- Matthew Simpson PhD Student in Philosophy University of Cambridge Mail: Robinson College, Cambridge, CB3 9AN _____________________________________________________ Sent by the CamPhilEvents mailing list. To unsubscribe or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents Posts are archived here: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive
