Do Statistical Laws Solve the ‘Problem of Provisos’?

Better Best Systems - Too Good To Be True

“…The need to ‘go beyond’ the vocabulary of one special science, such as biology, in order to characterize (a possibly open‐ended list) of ceteris paribus conditions is not a specific feature of Fodor's approach. It is a general characteristic of many accounts of ceteris paribus laws, including completer accounts, normality accounts, dispositionalist accounts (Earman and Roberts ; Reutlinger et al ; Reutlinger forthcoming). We side with Earman and Roberts () who take this “going beyond” feature to be essential for genuine ceteris paribus laws.…”

“…For instance, consider the law of demand: under the condition of perfect competition, an increase of demand of a commodity leads to an increase of price, given that the quantity of the supply of the commodity remains constant (Reutlinger et al 2011, section 1.1). The relationship between demand and price is not always as the law of demand says (or, as it seems to say prima facie), because an interfering factor might occur (as the supply may decrease, the government might interfere, a natural Better Best Systems -Too Good To Be True 379 catastrophe might disturb the communication between buyers and sellers, etc.).…”

“…We believe that it is fair to say that such a 'qualitative' characterization of conditions leading to a counter-instance to a law (that is, ceteris paribus conditions) is a generally accepted condition of adequacy for an account of ceteris paribus laws (cf. Earman and Roberts 1999;Reutlinger et al 2011). Schrenk's exceptionaccount apparently does not meet this condition of adequacy.…”

Thinking about Non-Universal Laws

“…Strevens's (2012Strevens's ( , 2014 distinction between narrowness and softening approaches is useful for distinguishing different accounts of the semantics (and truth conditions) of non-universal laws. According to softening approaches, non-universal law statements are statistical or probabilistic generalizations rather than deterministic ones (e.g., Pemberton and Cartwright 2014;Reutlinger, 2014;Roberts 2014;Schurz 2014;Strevens 2014;also cf. Earman and Roberts 1999;Schurz 2002).…”

“…Sometimes, it is argued that statistical generalizations naturally allow for exceptions and, thereby, capture the familiar non-universal character of special science laws (Earman and Roberts 1999;Schurz 2002). Reutlinger (2014), Roberts (2014), andStrevens (2014) provide an in-depth discussion of the merits and limits of the softness approach. Reutlinger argues against the statistical account of special science laws (Earman and Roberts 1999), according to which non-universal law statements of the special sciences describe correlations and are not hedged by cp-clauses (see also Hüttemann and Reutlinger 2013).…”