more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Bird argues that there are no finks at the fundamental level, and unlikely to be any antidotes. It then follows that laws at the fundamental level will all be strict - not ceteris paribus - laws.
Clarification
'ceteris paribus' means 'other things being equal'
Gist of Idea
If there are no finks or antidotes at the fundamental level, the laws can't be ceteris paribus
Source
report of Tyler Burge (Intellectual Norms and Foundations of Mind [1986]) by Richard Corry - Dispositional Essentialism Grounds Laws of Nature? 3
Book Ref
-: 'Australasian Journal of Philosophy' [-], p.5
A Reaction
[Bird's main target is Nancy Cartwright 1999] This is a nice line of argument. Isn't part of the ceteris paribus problem that two fundamental laws might interfere with one another?
Related Ideas
Idea 14347 A 'finkish' disposition is one that is lost immediately after the appropriate stimulus [Corry]
Idea 14348 An 'antidote' allows a manifestation to begin, but then blocks it [Corry]
| 17004 | Nothing can break the binding laws of eternity [Lucretius] |
| 16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
| 15820 | A 'law of nature' is just something which is physically necessary [Chisholm] |
| 15867 | Laws describe abstract idealisations, not the actual mess of nature [Harré] |
| 15860 | We take it that only necessary happenings could be laws [Harré] |
| 15872 | Must laws of nature be universal, or could they be local? [Harré] |
| 15238 | Being lawlike seems to resist formal analysis, because there are always counter-examples [Harré/Madden] |
| 14349 | If there are no finks or antidotes at the fundamental level, the laws can't be ceteris paribus [Burge, by Corry] |
| 3525 | Strict laws make causation logically necessary [Maslin] |
| 3527 | Strict laws allow no exceptions and are part of a closed system [Maslin] |
| 14575 | A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 23706 | Hume's Dictum says no connections are necessary - so mass and spacetime warping could separate [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |