Laws in the Special Sciences: A Comparative Study of Biological Generalizations (2002)
Elgin, Mehmet (Author)
University of Wisconsin at Madison
Sober, Elliott R.
Edition Details: Advisor: Sober, Elliott R.
Physical Details: 130 pp.
Language: English
The question of whether biology contains laws has important implications about the nature of science. Some philosophers believe that the legitimacy of the special sciences depends on whether they contain laws. In this dissertation, I defend the thesis that biology contains laws. In Chapter I, I discuss the importance of this problem and set the stage for my inquiry. In Chapter V, I summarize the results of Chapters II, III, and IV and I offer reasons why the position I advance should be preferred over the alternatives. In Chapter II, I argue that the epistemic functions of a priori biological laws in biology are the same as those of empirical laws in physics. I establish this claim by showing that zero force laws and singleton force laws in these sciences function in the same way. I conclude that the requirement that laws must be empirical is idle in connection with how laws operate in science. In Chapter III, I argue that even if there are ceteris paribus sentences, it is unlikely that there are ceteris paribus laws. If there are genuine ceteris paribus laws, then ceteris paribus should be a proper part of a law statement in which it occurs. I argue that if we interpret ceteris paribus in this way, the containing sentence cannot be a law because it does not satisfy a minimal condition for laws---i.e., ceteris paribus A 's are B's and ceteris paribus A's are not B's should not both be true. In Chapter IV, I argue that the reasons offered for the non-existence of empirical biological laws don't establish the intended conclusion. I, then, argue that the kinds of law we should expect to find in biology are biophysical laws. I defend this claim by providing a priori and a posteriori arguments. The a priori argument states that the complexity of a system is no reason to think that there are no laws about that system. The a posteriori argument states that current research in evolutionary ecology indicates the existence of biophysical laws.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 63 (2003): 3966. UMI order no. 3072848.
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