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Ceteris Paribus Laws and Psychological Explanations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Charles Wallis
Charles Wallis*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Extract

Two important components of Fodor's philosophy of cognitive science rely heavily upon ceteris paribus laws, thus requiring that Fodor forward an analysis of ceteris paribus laws. First, because Fodor has long held (1975, 1990) that all of the laws of the special sciences are ceteris paribus laws, he must demonstrate the scientific legitimacy of ceteris paribus laws. Second, ceteris paribus laws play a prominent role in Fodor's most recent (1990) theory of representational content, and solution to the “disjunction problem,” a well-known problem for his approach. Fodor recently (1991a) offered an analysis of ceteris paribus laws for the special sciences (particularly cognitive science). I ask two questions with regard to Fodor's analysis: Does the analysis underwrite Fodor's theory of representation? Does the analysis provide adequate solutions to the problems for ceteris paribus laws as articulated by Hempel (1965, 1988) and Giere (1988)? I answer both questions negatively.

Type
Part X. Games, Explanations, Authority, and Justification
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 388 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

I am indebted to the Mellon foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and to colleagues at the University of Rochester and the University of Arizona.

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