Abstract
In the preceding chapter, we explored the possibility of how serious criticism of the Hempel model of explanation might have been met by assuming that laws were representable as counterfactuals. That assumption only made matters worse.
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Notes
- 1.
Carl Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science, Prentice-Hall, 1966, p. 56.
- 2.
S. Psillos, Causation and Explanation, McGill- Queens University, Press 2002.
- 3.
E. Nagel, The Structure of Science, Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc., 1961, p. 52.
- 4.
It was argued by Victor H. Dudman, “Interpretations of ‘If’ – sentences.” in Conditionals, F. Jackson (ed.), Oxford Readings in Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 202–232, that counterfactual conditionals are such that with the exception of antecedents that are theorems or contradictions, the counterfactual is equivalent to a modal operator associated with the antecedent that is applied to the consequent.
- 5.
Cambridge University Press, Part I, 1921, Part II, 1922, Part III in1924, Reprinted by Dover Publications, Inc., 1964.
- 6.
Laws and Lawmakers, Science, Metaphysics, and the Laws of Nature, Oxford University Press, New York, 2009.
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Koslow, A. (2019). Laws and Corresponding Counterfactuals, – An Untenable Connection. In: Laws and Explanations; Theories and Modal Possibilities. Synthese Library, vol 410. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18846-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18846-7_3
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