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How Scientific Laws Can Be About Individuals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Robert M. Martin
Robert M. Martin
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
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Extract

The assumption is often made that there cannot be scientific laws about individuals. I shall try to provide a plausible semantics and epistemology for scientific laws about individuals. This would be interesting, however, only ifone were tempted to believe that mentioning individuals did not disqualify a sentence from scientific lawhood. To begin with, I will try to provide such a temptation.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , Summer 1986 , pp. 251 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1986

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References

1 This sort of point has been a frequent feature of philosophy of history. An interesting discussion of its implications was given by Professor Roger Wehrell of Mount Allison University in “Family Resemblances and Family Pedigrees” (unpublished paper read at the Atlantic Regional Philosophical Association meetings, Universite Sainte-Anne, Church Point, Nova Scotia, 1983).

2 Rosenberg, Alexander, Sociobiology and the Preemption of Social Science (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

3 Another familiar argument; well-known versions occur in Fodor, Jerry A., Psychological Explanation (New York: Random House, 1968), and in various works by PutnamGoogle Scholar.

4 Hempel, Carl G. and Oppenheim, Paul, “The Logic of Explanation”, Philosophy of Science 15 (1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961)Google Scholar.

6 Ayer, A. J., “What is a Law of Nature”, in The Concept of a Person (London: MacMillan, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Goodman, Nelson, “The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals”, Journal of Philosophy 441 (1947)Google Scholar.

8 Chisholm, R. M., “The Contrary-to-Fact Conditional”, Mind 55 (1946)Google Scholar.

9 Thanks to my colleague P. K. Schotch for suggesting this.