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Better Best Systems – Too Good To Be True

Backmann, Marius and Reutlinger, Alexander (2014) Better Best Systems – Too Good To Be True. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Craig Callender, Jonathan Cohen and Markus Schrenk have recently argued for an amended version of the best system account of laws – the better best system account (BBSA). This account of lawhood is supposed to account for laws in the special sciences, among other desiderata. Unlike David Lewis’s original best system account of laws, the BBSA does not rely on a privileged class of natural predicates, in terms of which the best system is formulated. According to the BBSA, a contingently true generalization is a law of a special science S iff the generalization is an axiom (or a theorem) of the best system
relative to the set of predicates used by special science S. We argue that the BBSA is, at best, an incomplete theory of special science laws, as it does not account for typical features of special science laws, such as attached ceteris paribus conditions and the idealized character of law statements in these disciplines.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Backmann, Mariusmarius.backmann@uni-konstanz.de
Reutlinger, AlexanderAlexander.Reutlinger@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Additional Information: forthcoming in Dialectica
Keywords: laws of nature ceteris paribus laws best system account of laws better best systems idealization
Subjects: General Issues > Laws of Nature
General Issues > Models and Idealization
Depositing User: Alexander Reutlinger
Date Deposited: 13 Jun 2014 16:50
Last Modified: 13 Jun 2014 16:50
Item ID: 10749
Subjects: General Issues > Laws of Nature
General Issues > Models and Idealization
Date: June 2014
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/10749

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