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Full Idea
Nancy Cartwright distinguishes between 'fundamental explanatory laws', which we should not believe, and 'phenomenological laws', which are regularities established on the basis of observation.
Gist of Idea
There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities)
Source
report of Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983]) by Alexander Bird - Philosophy of Science Ch.4
Book Ref
Bird,Alexander: 'Philosophy of Science' [UCL Press 2000], p.139
A Reaction
The distinction is helpful, so that we can be clearer about what everyone is claiming. We can probably all agree on the phenomenological laws, which are epistemological. Personally I claim truth for the best fundamental explanatory laws.
| 17549 | Seven theories in science: mechanics, heat, electricity, quantum, particles, relativity, life [Heisenberg, by PG] |
| 8365 | Some laws are causal (Ohm's Law), but others are conceptual principles (conservation of energy) [Wright,GHv] |
| 17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
| 6616 | Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis] |
| 15862 | Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures [Harré] |
| 15870 | Are laws of nature about events, or types and universals, or dispositions, or all three? [Harré] |
| 15871 | Are laws about what has or might happen, or do they also cover all the possibilities? [Harré] |
| 3407 | Laws are either 'strict', or they involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause [Kim] |
| 6781 | There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird] |
| 16166 | Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N] |
| 9488 | Laws are either disposition regularities, or relations between properties [Bird] |