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  1. How the laws of physics lie.Nancy Cartwright - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    In this sequence of philosophical essays about natural science, the author argues that fundamental explanatory laws, the deepest and most admired successes of modern physics, do not in fact describe regularities that exist in nature. Cartwright draws from many real-life examples to propound a novel distinction: that theoretical entities, and the complex and localized laws that describe them, can be interpreted realistically, but the simple unifying laws of basic theory cannot.
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  • Laws and symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Metaphysicians speak of laws of nature in terms of necessity and universality; scientists, in terms of symmetry and invariance. In this book van Fraassen argues that no metaphysical account of laws can succeed. He analyzes and rejects the arguments that there are laws of nature, or that we must believe there are, and argues that we should disregard the idea of law as an adequate clue to science. After exploring what this means for general epistemology, the author develops the empiricist (...)
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  • (1 other version)New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
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  • Nature's capacities and their measurement.Nancy Cartwright - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Ever since David Hume, empiricists have barred powers and capacities from nature. In this book Cartwright argues that capacities are essential in our scientific world, and, contrary to empiricist orthodoxy, that they can meet sufficiently strict demands for testability. Econometrics is one discipline where probabilities are used to measure causal capacities, and the technology of modern physics provides several examples of testing capacities (such as lasers). Cartwright concludes by applying the lessons of the book about capacities and probabilities to the (...)
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  • A System of Logic.John Stuart Mill - 1829/2002 - Longman.
    Reprint of the original, first published in 1869.
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  • On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.
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  • (1 other version)Models and Analogies in Science.Mary B. Hesse - 1963 - [Notre Dame, Ind.]: University of Notre Dame Press.
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  • Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science.Mary S. Morgan & Margaret Morrison (eds.) - 1999 - Cambridge University Press.
    Models as Mediators discusses the ways in which models function in modern science, particularly in the fields of physics and economics. Models play a variety of roles in the sciences: they are used in the development, exploration and application of theories and in measurement methods. They also provide instruments for using scientific concepts and principles to intervene in the world. The editors provide a framework which covers the construction and function of scientific models, and explore the ways in which they (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 36 (3):602-605.
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  • What is a Law of Nature?David Malet Armstrong - 1983 - Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Sydney Shoemaker.
    First published in 1985, D. M. Armstrong's original work on what laws of nature are has continued to be influential in the areas of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Presenting a definitive attack on the sceptical Humean view, that laws are no more than a regularity of coincidence between stances of properties, Armstrong establishes his own theory and defends it concisely and systematically against objections. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Marc (...)
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  • Universals and scientific realism.David Malet Armstrong - 1978 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    v. 1. Nominalism and realism.--v. 2. A theory of universals.
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  • (1 other version)New Work For a Theory of Universals.David Lewis - 1997 - In David Hugh Mellor & Alex Oliver (eds.), Properties. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • (1 other version)Models and Analogies in Science.Mary Hesse - 1965 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 16 (62):161-163.
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  • (1 other version)Laws and Symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 182 (3):327-329.
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  • The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism.Frederick Suppe - 1989 - University of Illinois Press.
    Frederick Suppe has come to enjoy a position of undisputed leadership in the post-positivistic philosophy of science.
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  • Laws of nature.Fred I. Dretske - 1977 - Philosophy of Science 44 (2):248-268.
    It is a traditional empiricist doctrine that natural laws are universal truths. In order to overcome the obvious difficulties with this equation most empiricists qualify it by proposing to equate laws with universal truths that play a certain role, or have a certain function, within the larger scientific enterprise. This view is examined in detail and rejected; it fails to account for a variety of features that laws are acknowledged to have. An alternative view is advanced in which laws are (...)
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  • Galilean Idealization.Ernan McMullin - 1985 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 16 (3):247.
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  • (1 other version)Models and Analogies in Science.Mary B. Hesse - 1966 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 3 (3):190-191.
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  • Laws of Nature.John W. Carroll - 1994 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    John Carroll undertakes a careful philosophical examination of laws of nature, causation, and other related topics. He argues that laws of nature are not susceptible to the sort of philosophical treatment preferred by empiricists. Indeed he shows that emperically pure matters of fact need not even determine what the laws are. Similar, even stronger, conclusions are drawn about causation. Replacing the traditional view of laws and causation requiring some kind of foundational legitimacy, the author argues that these phenomena are inextricably (...)
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  • (1 other version)Laws of Nature.John Carroll - 1995 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (4):603-609.
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  • (1 other version)Physics and Chance.Lawrence Sklar - 1995 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (1):145-149.
    Statistical mechanics is one of the crucial fundamental theories of physics, and in his new book Lawrence Sklar, one of the pre-eminent philosophers of physics, offers a comprehensive, non-technical introduction to that theory and to attempts to understand its foundational elements. Among the topics treated in detail are: probability and statistical explanation, the basic issues in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, the role of cosmology, the reduction of thermodynamics to statistical mechanics, and the alleged foundation of the very notion (...)
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  • Is Science Progressive?I. Niiniluoto - 1984 - Reidel.
    This collection brings together several essays which have been written between the years 197 5 and 1983. During that period I have been occupied with the attempt to find a satisfactory explicate for the notion of tnithlike ness or verisimilitude. The technical results of this search have partly appeared elsewhere, and I am also working on a systematic presentation of them in a companion volume to this book: Truthlikeness. The essays collected in this book are less formal and more philos (...)
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  • Truthlikeness.I. Niiniluoto - 2005 - In Sahotra Sarkar & Jessica Pfeifer (eds.), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. pp. 854--857.
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  • (1 other version)Truthlikeness.Ilkka Niiniluoto & David Pearce - 1990 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 41 (2):281-290.
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  • Taking Thermodynamics Too Seriously.Craig Callender - 2001 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 32 (4):539-553.
    This paper discusses the mistake of understanding the laws and concepts of thermodynamics too literally in the foundations of statistical mechanics. Arguing that this error is still made in subtle ways, the article explores its occurrence in three examples: the Second Law, the concept of equilibrium and the definition of phase transitions.
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  • Models in physics.Michael Redhead - 1980 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 31 (2):145-163.
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  • Truthlikeness.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 1987 - Dordrecht: Reidel.
    The modern discussion on the concept of truthlikeness was started in 1960. In his influential Word and Object, W. V. O. Quine argued that Charles Peirce's definition of truth as the limit of inquiry is faulty for the reason that the notion 'nearer than' is only "defined for numbers and not for theories". In his contribution to the 1960 International Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science at Stan­ ford, Karl Popper defended the opposite view by defining a compara­tive (...)
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  • Approximate truth and truthlikeness.R. Hilpinen - 1976 - In M. Przełecki, K. Szaniawski & R. W’Ojcicki (eds.), Formal Methods in the Methodology of the Empirical Sciences. Reidel. pp. 19--42.
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  • From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism: On Some Relations Between Confirmation, Empirical Progress, and Truth Approximation.Theodorus Antonius Franciscus Kuipers - 2000 - Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer.
    Surprisingly, modified versions of the confirmation theory (Carnap and Hempel) and truth approximation theory (Popper) turn out to be smoothly sythesizable. The glue between the two appears to be the instrumentalist methodology, rather than that of the falsificationalist. The instrumentalist methodology, used in the separate, comparative evaluation of theories in terms of their successes and problems (hence, even if already falsified), provides in theory and practice the straight road to short-term empirical progress in science ( à la Laudan). It is (...)
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  • Approximate truth and scientific realism.Thomas Weston - 1992 - Philosophy of Science 59 (1):53-74.
    This paper describes a theory of accuracy or approximate truth and applies it to problems in the realist interpretation of scientific theories. It argues not only that realism requires approximate truth, but that an adequate theory of approximation also presupposes some elements of a realist interpretation of theories. The paper distinguishes approximate truth from vagueness, probability and verisimilitude, and applies it to problems of confirmation and deduction from inaccurate premises. Basic results are cited, but details appear elsewhere. Objections are surveyed, (...)
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  • The Logic of Thermostatistical Physics.Gerard G. Emch & Chuang Liu - 2002 - Springer Verlag.
    This book is devoted to a thorough analysis of the role that models play in the practise of physical theory. The authors, a mathematical physicist and a philosopher of science, appeal to the logicians’ notion of model theory as well as to the concepts of physicists.
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  • Causal explanation and the reality of natural component forces.Lewis G. Creary - 1981 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 62 (2):148-157.
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  • Explaining the emergence of cooperative phenomena.Chuang Liu - 1999 - Philosophy of Science 66 (3):106.
    Phase transitions are well-understood phenomena in thermodynamics (TD), but it turns out that they are mathematically impossible in finite SM systems. Hence, phase transitions are truly emergent properties. They appear again at the thermodynamic limit (TL), i.e., in infinite systems. However, most, if not all, systems in which they occur are finite, so whence comes the justification for taking TL? The problem is then traced back to the TD characterization of phase transitions, and it turns out that the characterization is (...)
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  • (1 other version)Is Science Progressive?Jarrett Leplin - 1988 - Noûs 22 (2):316-321.
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  • The role of models in the application of scientific theories: epistemological implications.Mauricio Suárez - 1999 - In Mary S. Morgan & Margaret Morrison (eds.), Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science. Cambridge University Press.
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  • Cartwright and the Lying Laws of Physics.Ronald Laymon - 1989 - Journal of Philosophy 86 (7):353.
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  • Models and the limits of theory: quantum hamiltonians and the BCS model of superconductivity.Nancy Cartwright - 1999 - In Mary S. Morgan & Margaret Morrison (eds.), Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science. Cambridge University Press. pp. 241-281.
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  • Approximation, idealization, and laws of nature.Chang Liu - 1999 - Synthese 118 (2):229-256.
    Traditional theories construe approximate truth or truthlikeness as a measure of closeness to facts, singular facts, and idealization as an act of either assuming zero of otherwise very small differences from facts or imagining ideal conditions under which scientific laws are either approximately true or will be so when the conditions are relaxed. I first explain the serious but not insurmountable difficulties for the theories of approximation, and then argue that more serious and perhaps insurmountable difficulties for the theory of (...)
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  • Why equilibrium statistical mechanics works: Universality and the renormalization group.Robert W. Batterman - 1998 - Philosophy of Science 65 (2):183-208.
    Discussions of the foundations of Classical Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics (SM) typically focus on the problem of justifying the use of a certain probability measure (the microcanonical measure) to compute average values of certain functions. One would like to be able to explain why the equilibrium behavior of a wide variety of distinct systems (different sorts of molecules interacting with different potentials) can be described by the same averaging procedure. A standard approach is to appeal to ergodic theory to justify this (...)
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  • Theories, approximations, and idealizations.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 1990 - Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 16:9-57.
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  • The role of models in the application of scientific theories: epistemological implications.Mauricio Suárez - 1999 - In Mary S. Morgan & Margaret Morrison (eds.), Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science. Cambridge University Press.
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  • A syntactic and semantic analysis of idealizations in science.William F. Barr - 1971 - Philosophy of Science 38 (2):258-272.
    Various laws and theories in the natural and social sciences are presented with a view to discerning the syntactic and semantic characteristics of many idealizations in science. Three different kinds of idealizations are discussed: ideal conditions, ideal cases, and idealized theories. An ideal condition is a formula in which state variables occur, whose existential closure is false, and for which there is another formula that can be constructed out of the original formula such that the existential closure of the new (...)
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  • Laws of science, theories, measurement: (Comments on Ernest Nagel's the structure of science).Leszek Nowak - 1972 - Philosophy of Science 39 (4):533-548.
    The problem of idealization in empirical sciences is very rarely taken up in works concerned with the methodology of those sciences. It seems to be common knowledge that in advanced natural sciences references are made to concepts such as “perfectly rigid body,” “material point,” “perfect gas,” etc., but it remains a fact that the most important methodological concepts, concepts which have determined the present-day form of the philosophy of science, have been advanced without regard to the peculiarities of the procedure (...)
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  • Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach. [REVIEW]Jeffrey S. Poland - 1988 - Philosophical Review 100 (4):653-656.
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  • (2 other versions)What Is a Law of Nature?[author unknown] - 1985 - Philosophy 60 (234):557-558.
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  • Models: The blueprints for laws.Nancy Cartwright - 1997 - Philosophy of Science 64 (4):303.
    In this paper the claim that laws of nature are to be understood as claims about what necessarily or reliably happens is disputed. Laws can characterize what happens in a reliable way, but they do not do this easily. We do not have laws for everything occurring in the world, but only for those situations where what happens in nature is represented by a model: models are blueprints for nomological machines, which in turn give rise to laws. An example from (...)
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  • Towards the formal study of models in the non-formal sciences.Leo Apostel - 1960 - Synthese 12 (2-3):125 - 161.
    I. The function of models in the empirical sciencesII. Structure and purpose: conditions of a structural nature which models should satisfy in order to accomplish their function.III. Generalisation and specialisation of the classical definition of model, in view of the above requirements:the algebraic model conceptthe semantic model conceptthe syntactical model conceptIV. Attempt towards reunification: the concept of model on a pragmatic basis.
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  • Measuring truthlikeness.R. D. Rosenkrantz - 1980 - Synthese 45 (3):463 - 487.
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  • Laws and models in a theory of idealization.Chuang Liu - 2004 - Synthese 138 (3):363 - 385.
    I first give a brief summary of a critique of the traditional theories of approximation and idealization; and after identifying one of the major roles of idealization as detaching component processes or systems from their joints, a detailed analysis is given of idealized laws – which are discoverable and/or applicable – in such processes and systems (i.e., idealized model systems). Then, I argue that dispositional properties should be regarded as admissible properties for laws and that such an inclusion supplies the (...)
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  • Idealization, Explanation, and Confirmation.Ronald Laymon - 1980 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1980:336 - 350.
    The use of idealizations and approximations in scientific explanations poses a problem for traditional philosophical theories of confirmation since, strictly speaking, these sorts of statements are false. Furthermore, in several central cases in the history of science, theoretical predictions seen as confirmatory are not, in any usual sense, even approximately true. As a means of eliminating the puzzling nature of these cases, two theses are proposed. First, explanations consist of idealized deductive-nomological sketches plus what are called modal auxiliaries, i.e., arguments (...)
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