rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Laws and Explanations; Theories and Modal Possibilities
  name:
    name part: Koslow, Arnold.
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
    role:
      role term: aut
    role:
      role term: http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut
  name:
    name part: SpringerLink (Online service)
  type of resource: text
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: gw
    date issued: 2019
    edition: 1st ed. 2019.
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: electronic
    form: electronic resource
    reformatting quality: access
    form: remote
    extent: IX, 185 p. 2 illus. online resource.
  abstract: The book has two parts: In the first, after a review of some seminal classical accounts of laws and explanations, a new account is proposed for distinguishing between laws and accidental generalizations (LAG). Among the new consequences of this proposal it is proved that any explanation of a contingent generalization shows that the generalization is not accidental. The second part involves physical theories, their modality, and their explanatory power. In particular, it is shown that (1) Each theory has a theoretical implication structure associated with it, such that there are new physical modal operators on these structures and also special modal entities that are in these structures. A special subset of the physical modals, the nomic modals are associated with the laws of theories. (2) The familiar idea that theories always explain laws by deduction of them has to be seriously modified in light of the fact that there are a host of physical theories (including for example, Newtonian Classical mechanics, Hamiltonian, and Lagrangian theory, and probability theory) that we believe are schematic (they do not have any truth value). Nevertheless, we think that there is a kind of non-deductive explanation and generality that they achieve by subsumtion under a schema.
  table of contents: Part I: Appreciating and Burnishing the Past -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. C.Hempel: In the beginning ... -- Chapter 3. Laws and their corresponding counterfactuals; an untenable connection -- Chapter 4. F. Dretske's Total rejection of the Hempel model. Universals and Magnitudes to the rescue -- Chapter 5. Prelude to D.Armstrong: A mathematical movement which inspired Ramsey, and left Russell and Armstrong unmoved -- Chapter 6. D.Armstrong's account of laws. Identity lost, regained, and lost again -- Part II: The Relatvization of Laws to Theoretical scenarios, Schematic Theories and Physical and Nomic modals -- Chapter 7. Laws and Accidental Generalizations. A new, minimal theory of the difference -- Chapter 8. E. Nagel and R. B. Braithwaite. Two neglected radical and radically different theories: one inspired by Hilbert, the other by Ramsey -- Chapter 9. D. Hilbert's Architectural structuralism, and Schematic Theories -- Chapter 10. Theories, their magnitude spaces, and the physical possibilities they provide -- Chapter 11. Theories, laws, and nomic possibilities (modals) -- Chapter 12. Schematic theories, subsumtion of laws, and non-accidental generalizations.
  note: by Arnold Koslow.
  subject:
    topic: Philosophy and science
  subject:
    topic: Physics
  subject:
    topic: Mathematical logic
  subject:
    topic: Philosophy of Science
  subject:
    topic: History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics
  subject:
    topic: Mathematical Logic and Foundations
  classification: B67
  classification: 501
  related item:
    title info:
      title: Springer eBooks
  related item:
    title info:
      title: Synthese Library, Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science ; 410
  identifier: 9783030188467
  identifier: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18846-7
  record info:
    record creation date: 200101
    record change date: 20200101102712.0
    record identifier: 978-3-030-18846-7