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Hempel’s Provisos and Ceteris Paribus Clauses

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Abstract

The problem of ceteris paribus clauses and Hempel’s problem of provisos are closely-related difficulties. Both challenge advocates of accounts of scientific theories involving laws understood as universal generalizations, and they have been treated as identical problems. Earman and Roberts argue that the problems are distinct. Towards arguing against them, I characterize the relationship between Hempel’s provisos and one way of expressing ceteris paribus clauses. I then describe the relationship between the problems attributed to the clauses, suggesting that they form a single problem-cluster. However, Hempel’s way of formulating provisos and discussing what they involve entangles provisos with the problem of skepticism. This creates a departure in Hempel’s discussion of provisos from the distinctive problem of vacuity which characterizes the problem of ceteris paribus clauses, though for different reasons than Earman and Roberts suggest.

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Notes

  1. In both directions, that is. The ordinary chain of inferences he characterizes proceeds from a statement in the antecedently-understood language to a statement in the theoretical language, to another statement in the theoretical language, and then finally back into the antecedently-understood language.

  2. A referee for this journal usefully highlighted this methodological significance.

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Acknowledgements

For useful comments on earlier versions of this article as it developed, I thank Ken Waters, Ron Giere, Mark McEvoy, Terry Godlove, Harold Skulsky, Tim Murphy, and several anonymous referees, including one for this journal who offered a valuable close reading.

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Correspondence to Christopher H. Eliot.

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Eliot, C.H. Hempel’s Provisos and Ceteris Paribus Clauses. J Gen Philos Sci 42, 207–218 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-011-9161-1

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