Laws and Causation in Science
This area examines the nature of scientific laws and causal relations, and how they structure scientific explanation and prediction.
Definition
Laws of nature are general truths that support counterfactuals and underwrite explanation and prediction; causation is the relation by which one event, state, or process brings about another. This area studies what laws and causes are and how they figure in science.
Scope
It covers the metaphysics of laws of nature (regularity, necessitarian, and dispositional accounts), theories of causation (regularity, counterfactual, process, and interventionist), natural kinds, and the relations of reduction and emergence between levels of scientific description.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- What distinguishes a law of nature from an accidental regularity?
- Is causation reducible to regularities, counterfactuals, or processes?
- Are there real natural kinds that science discovers?
- When does a higher-level science reduce to a lower-level one?
Key concepts
- law of nature
- nomic necessity
- counterfactual dependence
- INUS condition
- natural kind
- reduction
- emergence
- capacities
Key theories
- Necessitarian account of laws
- Armstrong, Dretske, and Tooley hold that laws are relations of nomic necessitation between universals, not mere regularities.
- Counterfactual theory of causation
- Lewis analyses causation in terms of counterfactual dependence between distinct events.
- Regularity (INUS) account of causation
- Mackie analyses causes as insufficient but non-redundant parts of unnecessary but sufficient conditions for their effects.
- Dappled-world view of laws
- Cartwright argues that fundamental laws are literally false as universal generalizations and that nature is governed by local capacities rather than exceptionless laws.
History
Humean regularity theories of laws and causation dominated empiricist philosophy of science. Mid-century work by Mackie (INUS conditions) and Lewis (counterfactuals) reshaped the theory of causation, while Armstrong's 1983 necessitarian theory and Cartwright's 1983 critique of universal laws reframed debates about laws and the metaphysics of science.
Debates
- Regularity versus necessity about laws
- Humeans hold that laws are just especially robust regularities, while Armstrong and others argue that only a relation of nomic necessitation can distinguish laws from accidental generalizations.
- What is the relation between causation and laws?
- Some accounts ground causation in laws, while process and counterfactual theories aim to analyse causation more directly, raising the question of which notion is more fundamental.
Key figures
- David Lewis
- David Armstrong
- Nancy Cartwright
- J. L. Mackie
- Stathis Psillos
Related topics
Seminal works
- armstrong1983
- lewis1973
- mackie1974
- cartwright1983
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between a law and an accidental regularity?
- It is true both that all the coins in my pocket are copper and (let us suppose) that all uranium spheres are smaller than a mile across, yet only the latter seems lawlike. Capturing this difference — for instance, by appeal to counterfactual support or nomic necessitation — is a central problem in the metaphysics of laws.