Bas C. van Fraassen
- Published in print:
- 1989
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198248606
- eISBN:
- 9780191597459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198248601.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This chapter concentrates on isolating criteria of adequacy for any philosophical account of what laws of nature are. Sources include David Hume, Charles Sanders Peirce, Hans Reichenbach, Donald ...
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This chapter concentrates on isolating criteria of adequacy for any philosophical account of what laws of nature are. Sources include David Hume, Charles Sanders Peirce, Hans Reichenbach, Donald Davidson, David Armstrong, and David Lewis. Criteria examined pertain to universality, necessity, intensionality, explanation, prediction, confirmation, counter‐factuals, objectivity, and inference to the best explanation. Two main problems are presented: the problem of inference (that it is a law that A should imply that A is the case) and the problem of identification (there should be some identifiable aspect of nature that makes for laws). These two problems together constitute a dilemma, since a solution to one tends to pre‐empt any solution to the other.Less
This chapter concentrates on isolating criteria of adequacy for any philosophical account of what laws of nature are. Sources include David Hume, Charles Sanders Peirce, Hans Reichenbach, Donald Davidson, David Armstrong, and David Lewis. Criteria examined pertain to universality, necessity, intensionality, explanation, prediction, confirmation, counter‐factuals, objectivity, and inference to the best explanation. Two main problems are presented: the problem of inference (that it is a law that A should imply that A is the case) and the problem of identification (there should be some identifiable aspect of nature that makes for laws). These two problems together constitute a dilemma, since a solution to one tends to pre‐empt any solution to the other.
Angus Ritchie
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199652518
- eISBN:
- 9780191745850
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199652518.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter evaluates the theory of ethics developed by Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard. It argues that their ‘moral quasi-realism’ cannot vindicate the fundamental ethical commitments which were ...
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This chapter evaluates the theory of ethics developed by Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard. It argues that their ‘moral quasi-realism’ cannot vindicate the fundamental ethical commitments which were defended in Chapter 1. Either it must say that our current sentiments fix moral truth (whoever ‘we’ are deemed to be) or they must allow that the truth could be different from what we now think. The chapter argues that neither alternative is acceptable: the former position rules out future moral progress (‘emancipatory changes’), whereas the latter (in the absence of any notion of a more objective order of reason) re-opens the door to the very kind of morally obnoxious counterfactuals quasi-realism was designed to avoid.Less
This chapter evaluates the theory of ethics developed by Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard. It argues that their ‘moral quasi-realism’ cannot vindicate the fundamental ethical commitments which were defended in Chapter 1. Either it must say that our current sentiments fix moral truth (whoever ‘we’ are deemed to be) or they must allow that the truth could be different from what we now think. The chapter argues that neither alternative is acceptable: the former position rules out future moral progress (‘emancipatory changes’), whereas the latter (in the absence of any notion of a more objective order of reason) re-opens the door to the very kind of morally obnoxious counterfactuals quasi-realism was designed to avoid.
