An acceptable empiricist account of laws of nature would havesignificant implications for a number of philosophical projects. For example, such an account may vitiate argumentsthat the fundamental constants of nature are divinelydesigned so that laws produce a life permittinguniverse. On an empiricist account, laws do not produce the universe but are designed by us to systematize theevents of a universe which does in fact contain life; so any ``fine tuning'' of natural law has a naturalistic explanation.But there are problems for (...) the empiricist project. This paper develops a ``perspectival'' version of the Humean bestsystem approach and argues that this version solves the standard problems faced by the empiricist project.Furthermore, the paper argues, this version is best able to answer the proponents of divine design while leaving scientificlaw a suitably objective matter.[I]t is possible tocondense the enormous mass of results to a large extent – that is to find laws which summarize...Richard Feynman It has become fashionable in some circles to argue thatscience is ultimately a sham, that we scientists read order into nature, not out of nature, and that the laws of physicsare our laws, not nature's. I believe this is arrant nonsense. You would be hard-pressed to convince a physicist thatNewton's inverse square law of gravitation is a purely cultural concoction. The laws of physics, I submit, reallyexist in the world out there, and the job of the scientist is to uncover them, not invent them. True, at any giventime, the laws you find in the textbooks are tentative and approximate, but they mirror, albeit imperfectly, a reallyexisting order in the physical world. Of course, many scientists do not recognize that in accepting the reality of anorder in nature-the existence of laws `out there' – they are adopting a theological world view. P. C. W. Davies. (shrink)

character. So, we have learned from early on that laws are meant to portray a sort of necessity in nature. The comings and goings described by law are not merely contingently related. Rather, it is part of the concept of law that these events are connected in some significant way: "nomically" connected. One important desideratum for an account of law, then, is that it respect and perhaps explain this modal character.

August 16, 1997 David Lewis2 has long defended an account of scientific law acceptable even to an empiricist with significant metaphysical scruples. On this account, the laws are defined to be the consequences of the best system for axiomitizing all occurrent fact. Here "best system" means the set of sentences which yields the best combination of strength of descriptive content 3 with simplicity of exposition. And occurrent facts, the facts to be systematized, are roughly the particular facts about a localized (...) space-time region that are non-modal, non-dispositional, and non-causal. Scientists providing or attempting to provide laws are plausibly seen as giving general principles that unify a body of data. Thus they organize or systematize the arrangement of occurrences. For this reason, Lewis's account has the important merits of providing contact with actual scientific practice while making sense of the standard philosophical conception that laws should be general but more than mere accidental generalizations. However, Lewis has long known about a potential problem with this account, a problem involving chance and credence.4 In a recent series of articles he, Michael Thau, and Ned Hall have developed a new formulation of the relationship between chance and credence which solves the problem. However, I will argue that these articles leave untouched and even exacerbate a closely related and more fundamental problem with the best system account, the problem of nomic necessity. Laws are supposed to be more than true; in some sense they must be true. Yet a principle's membership in the best systematization for one world seems to say nothing about its necessity, i.e., its truth at other worlds. I close by briefly describing how an alternative empiricist account may remove both problems. (shrink)

The nature of quantum mechanical probability has often seemed mysterious. To shed some light on this topic, the present paper analyzes the logical form of probability assignment in quantum mechanics. To begin the paper, I set out and criticize several attempts to analyze the form. I go on to propose a new form which utilizes a novel, probabilistic conditional and argue that this proposal is, overall, the best rendering of the quantum mechanical probability assignments. Finally, quantum mechanics aside, the discussion (...) here has consequences for counterfactual logic, conditional probability, and epistemic probability. (shrink)

In his (1981) paper, Stalnaker has revised his old theory of conditionals and has given the revision an interesting defense. Indeed, Stalnaker shows that this new theory meets the standard objections put to the old. However, I argue that the revision runs into difficulties in the context of quantum mechanics: If Stalnaker's theory of the conditional is assumed, then from plausible assumptions certain Bell-like conflicts with experiment can be derived. This result, I go on to argue, is a good reason (...) to reject Stalnaker's theory, at least for the quantum mechanical context. (shrink)

Many physics parameters need to be precisely set in order for life to exist in our universe. Or so says the fine-tuning argument. That the actual values are just right for life, the argument concludes, is a fact in need of deep physical or metaphysical explanation. Perhaps, the story goes, the parameter values settings are a matter of divine design. Or perhaps they result from a selection effect given our place in the “multiverse”. However, a very different approach to the (...) problem is possible. One may argue that the fine-tuning is an artefact of theorizing: it is explicable as the precise balancing act necessary for compact, systematic representation in science. Given such an explanation and drawing on earlier work from a number of sources, this essay shows how fine-tuning is best understood as evidence for a non-governing conception of laws rather than for design or multiverse. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the recent trend to renounce the similarity approach to counterfactuals in favor of the older metalinguistic theory. I try to show, first, that the metalinguistic theory cannot work in anything like its present form (the form described by many in the last decade who claim to be able to solve Goodman''s old problem of cotenability). This is so, I argue, because the metalinguistic theory requires laws of nature of a sort that we (apparently) do not have: current (...) physical theory cannot underwrite the metalinguistic theory. Second, I draw from the first point a motivation for the similarity approach, a motivation based on theoretical considerations apart from the standard ones of pretheoretical intuition. (shrink)

The best-system account of scientific law proposes that laws and chances are to be defined in terms of systematic interpretation of all occurrences: L is a law and the chance of X is p just in case L and the chance p of X are consequences of the ideal axiom system for the totality of events. So, what seem to be further facts beyond the occurrences are just matters of the best way to interpret the totality of physical events. This (...) paper proposes treating mentalistic concepts in a similar fashion: humans have consciousness in virtue of the fact that their brains’ best selfmonitoring, first-person interpretation of events involves consciousness. Apparent “further facts” about the mental realm are just matters of the brain’s native way to interpret itself. On this view, a philosopher’s “zombie” is just a normal human interpreted in a non-mentalistic way. (shrink)

Conceptual problems for consciousness are analogous to a Humean’s problem with scientific laws. Just as consciousness is often seen to involve further facts beyond the physical, laws would seem to involve reality beyond the Humean’s occurrent facts1. I will attempt to show that a Lewis-style best-system solution to the problem for laws should be applied to the related problem for consciousness. The leading idea of a best-system account is that law and chance claims are true in virtue of their place (...) in ideal systematic treatment of the totality of occurrent fact. Nomic facts about law and chance, then, are not “further facts” beyond the occurrent; rather they are a matter of idealized scientific theory. (shrink)

David Lewis[ii] has long defended an account of scientific law acceptable even to an empiricist with significant metaphysical scruples. On this account, the laws are defined to be the consequences of the best system for axiomitizing all occurrent fact. Here "best system" means the set of sentences which yields the best combination of strength of descriptive content[iii] with simplicity of exposition. And occurrent facts, the facts to be systematized, are roughly the particular facts about a localized space-time region that are (...) non-modal, non-dispositional, and non-causal. (shrink)

In chapter 1, I begin the task of giving a semantical theory which is appropriate for the general indeterministic context and which can profitably be applied to the special context of quantum mechanics. I treat the notion of indeterminism, and discuss tree structures. In the second chapter, I consider several theories of tense meant for the indeterministic context. All presuppose tree structures. I defend one of these as the best rendering of simple English future tense. ;In the third chapter, I (...) begin discussing counterfactual conditionals. It is the burden of this chapter to show that one well known analysis of counterfactuals, Stalnaker's theory, is not appropriate for the context of quantum mechanics. I show that his analysis leads all too easily to a contradiction of experimental evidence. Stalnaker's analysis--like many theories of counterfactuals--is based on the relation of comparative similarity between worlds. Recently this basis has been questioned. In chapter 4, I step back a bit from the project of analyzing counterfactuals and consider the foundations for any such analysis. I first argue that the similarity approach is still a promising one. But I go on to argue that a similarity approach requires a non-ordinary notion of 'similarity'. So 'similarity' is in need of explication. This, I argue, is something that should be done on a piecemeal basis. ;In the fifth chapter, I attempt to unify the results of earlier chapters by relating them to the quantum mechanical context. I begin by defending an analysis of counterfactuals which is given in terms of similarity between worlds. I try to show that this theory is a natural one for the quantum mechanical context. And I discuss how, for purposes of the analysis of counterfactuals, 'similarity' is to be understood in the quantum mechanical context. Also, I consider the logical form of quantum mechanical attribution of probability. These attributions, I argue, involve counterfactuals and tense in interesting ways. Utilizing the results of chapters 1 and 2, I argue for a somewhat novel rendering of these quantum mechanical attributions. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been much discussion over how to assure scientific integrity. It has become clear that a few scientists have fraudulently collected or reported data, conducted harmful or unethical experiments, or practiced “unscientific” procedure. What are regulative bodies to do? The approach has been to define research misconduct and then use that definition to assess scientific practice.[1] But just how to define research misconduct and hence, regulate the conduct of scientists in research? The debate that resulted in (...) response to this question, and that led ultimately to the new federal definition (42CFR50), has both theoretical and political underpinnings. The political underpinnings have been greatly discussed. But the theoretical underpinnings (and their connection to the political) have not. To give a definition of “good” versus “bad” science requires some understanding of the scientific process itself. So theoretical ideas about what constitutes good or bad science—ideas that influence and help shape our ideas and applications of research misconduct definitions—have political implications for the regulation of science. However, as the debates within both the scientific and philosophical communities have made clear, there are significant limits to any appropriate legislation of what counts as “good” science. A definition of research misconduct (or “bad” science) that spells out the nature of science too stringently may stifle scientific innovation. Consider the case of sociobiology when it was first introduced in the 1970’s. The idea is to account for social behavior of various species (including Homo sapiens) in terms of evolutionary biology. To take one example from sociobiology, the greater tendency of males toward rape is to be explained in terms of the evolutionary advantage for the male’s genes. Not surprisingly, sociobiology met with great controversy; some considered it an inappropriate application of biological principles to the social-interpretive-human domain. Still, few did or would suggest that it is the province of any regulatory body to silence the advocates of the new field. We will endorse and reinforce the standard arguments that the scientific process is too complicated to provide mechanical rules of conduct.. (shrink)