Direction and description
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B 32 (4):621-635 (2001)
| Abstract | This paper deals with the dependence of directionality in the course of events-or our claims concerning such directionality-on the modes of description we use in speaking of the events in question. I argue that criteria of similarity and individuation play a crucial role in assessments of directionality. This is an extension of Davidson's claim regarding the difference between causal and explanatory contexts. The argument is based on a characterisation of notions of necessity and contingency that differ from their modal logic counterparts on the one hand, and from causality and chance on the other. I show that some types of directionality are perfectly compatible with both determinism and indeterminism at the microscopic level, and that there is no likelihood of, or advantage to, reducing such directionality to other laws or causal processes. | |||||||||
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