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Biology and a Priori Laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mehmet Elgin
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Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the nature of a priori biological laws in connection with the idea that laws must be empirical. I argue that the epistemic functions of a priori biological laws in biology are the same as those of empirical laws in physics. Thus, the requirement that laws be empirical is idle in connection with how laws operate in science. This result presents a choice between sticking with an unmotivated philosophical requirement and taking the functional equivalence of laws seriously and modifying our philosophical account. I favor the latter.

Type
Laws and Causation
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 70 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2003 , pp. 1380 - 1389
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

My special thanks to Elliott Sober for reading all the earlier drafts of this paper and for discussing it with me. I also thank to Ellery Eells, Berent Enç, Malcolm Forster, Daniel Hausman, Fatih Öztürk, Larry Shapiro, and Joel Velasco for their comments and suggestions.

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