When Other Things Aren't Equal: Saving Ceteris Paribus Laws from Vacuity
When Other Things Aren't Equal: Saving Ceteris Paribus Laws from Vacuity
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当其他条件不相等时：使其他条件不变的法律免于真空
DOI：
10.1093/bjps/46.1.81
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发表时间：
1995
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Georges Rey
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
P. Pietroski;Georges Rey
一种普遍的观点是，其他同等条款使类似法律的陈述变得空洞，除非这些条款可以明确地重新表述为不面临反例的“真实”法律的前提。但这样的重塑是罕见的；我们认为，它们并不是总体上可以预期的。因此，我们为其他同等法律的非空洞的另一个充分条件辩护：粗略地说，法律的任何反例都必须是独立可解释的，在某种意义上我们是明确的。其他同等法律将带有过多的解释性承诺；这些承诺得到履行的说法将与其他经验性主张一样(不成立)。
A common view is that ceteris paribus clauses render lawlike statements vacuous, unless such clauses can be explicitly reformulated as antecedents of ‘real’ laws that face no counterinstances. But such reformulations are rare; and they are not, we argue, to be expected in general. So we defend an alternative sufficient condition for the non-vacuity of ceteris paribus laws: roughly, any counterinstance of the law must be independently explicable, in a sense we make explicit. Ceteris paribus laws will carry a plethora of explanatory commitments; and claims that such commitments are satisfied will be as (dis) confirmable as other empirical claims.