The Concept of Physical Law
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Jurisprudence--Philosophy Or Science Henry Rottschaefer
University of Minnesota Law School Scholarship Repository Minnesota Law Review 1927 Jurisprudence--Philosophy or Science Henry Rottschaefer Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Rottschaefer, Henry, "Jurisprudence--Philosophy or Science" (1927). Minnesota Law Review. 1465. https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr/1465 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Minnesota Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Minnesota Law Review collection by an authorized administrator of the Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MINNESOTA LAW REVIEW Journal of the State Bar Association VOLUI%1E 11 MARCH, 1927 No. 4 JURISPRUDENCE- PHILOSOPHY OR SCIENCE By HENRY ROTTSCHAEFER* T WOULD perhaps be practically impossible to secure for any definition of the term Jurisprudence any very general accep- tance. It is doubtful whether there exists even any general agree- ment as to what subjects are within its scope. The problem of whether, and in what sense, it is to be considered philosophy or science, cannot, however, be discussed without adopting at least some tentative notion of its meaning that shall serve as the basis for the discussion. This can be more effectively done by a general description of the types of problem usually dealt with in treatises and courses on Jurisprudence than by framing a logically correct definition that secured accuracy and completeness by resort to a convenient vagueness. Investigation discloses its use to denote lines of inquiry having little in common other than a professed interest in general questions and problems concerning law and justice. -
Some Thoughts About Natural Law
Some Thoughts About Natural Law Phflip E. Johnsont My first task is to define the subject. When I use the term "natural" law, I am distinguishing the category from other kinds of law such as positive law, divine law, or scientific law. When we discuss positive law, we look to materials like legislation, judicial opinions, and scholarly anal- ysis of these materials. If we speak of divine law, we ask if there are any knowable commands from God. If we look for scientific law, we conduct experiments, or make observations and calculations, in order to come to objectively verifiable knowledge about the material world. Natural law-as I will be using the term in this essay-refers to a method that we employ to judge what the principles of individual moral- ity or positive law ought to be. The natural law philosopher aspires to make these judgments on the basis of reason and human nature without invoking divine revelation or prophetic inspiration. Natural law so defined is a category much broader than any particular theory of natural law. One can believe in the existence of natural law without agreeing with the particular systems of natural law advocates like Aristotle or Aquinas. I am describing a way of thinking, not a particular theory. In the broad sense in which I am using the term, therefore, anyone who attempts to found concepts of justice upon reason and human nature engages in natural law philosophy. Contemporary philosophical systems based on feminism, wealth maximization, neutral conversation, liberal equality, or libertarianism are natural law philosophies. -
Scientific Explanation
Scientific Explanation Michael Strevens For the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, second edition The three cardinal aims of science are prediction, control, and expla- nation; but the greatest of these is explanation. Also the most inscrutable: prediction aims at truth, and control at happiness, and insofar as we have some independent grasp of these notions, we can evaluate science’s strate- gies of prediction and control from the outside. Explanation, by contrast, aims at scientific understanding, a good intrinsic to science and therefore something that it seems we can only look to science itself to explicate. Philosophers have wondered whether science might be better off aban- doning the pursuit of explanation. Duhem (1954), among others, argued that explanatory knowledge would have to be a kind of knowledge so ex- alted as to be forever beyond the reach of ordinary scientific inquiry: it would have to be knowledge of the essential natures of things, something that neo-Kantians, empiricists, and practical men of science could all agree was neither possible nor perhaps even desirable. Everything changed when Hempel formulated his dn account of ex- planation. In accordance with the observation above, that our only clue to the nature of explanatory knowledge is science’s own explanatory prac- tice, Hempel proposed simply to describe what kind of things scientists ten- dered when they claimed to have an explanation, without asking whether such things were capable of providing “true understanding”. Since Hempel, the philosophy of scientific explanation has proceeded in this humble vein, 1 seeming more like a sociology of scientific practice than an inquiry into a set of transcendent norms. -
Two Concepts of Law of Nature
Prolegomena 12 (2) 2013: 413–442 Two Concepts of Law of Nature BRENDAN SHEA Winona State University, 528 Maceman St. #312, Winona, MN, 59987, USA [email protected] ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE / RECEIVED: 04–12–12 ACCEPTED: 23–06–13 ABSTRACT: I argue that there are at least two concepts of law of nature worthy of philosophical interest: strong law and weak law . Strong laws are the laws in- vestigated by fundamental physics, while weak laws feature prominently in the “special sciences” and in a variety of non-scientific contexts. In the first section, I clarify my methodology, which has to do with arguing about concepts. In the next section, I offer a detailed description of strong laws, which I claim satisfy four criteria: (1) If it is a strong law that L then it also true that L; (2) strong laws would continue to be true, were the world to be different in some physically possible way; (3) strong laws do not depend on context or human interest; (4) strong laws feature in scientific explanations but cannot be scientifically explained. I then spell out some philosophical consequences: (1) is incompatible with Cartwright’s contention that “laws lie” (2) with Lewis’s “best-system” account of laws, and (3) with contextualism about laws. In the final section, I argue that weak laws are distinguished by (approximately) meeting some but not all of these criteria. I provide a preliminary account of the scientific value of weak laws, and argue that they cannot plausibly be understood as ceteris paribus laws. KEY WORDS: Contextualism, counterfactuals, David Lewis, laws of nature, Nancy Cartwright, physical necessity. -
Ast#: ___Science Knowledge Study Guide Physical
Name: ______________________________ Pd: ___ Ast#: _____ Science Knowledge Study Guide Physical Science Honors Provide a short response to the following prompts. 1. Describe how scientific knowledge is affected by new evidence (if the new evidence does NOT support the current understanding). Scientific knowledge grows and changes as new evidence is uncovered. 2. What is scientific knowledge built from? (list 3 things) Continuous testing and observation Debate (argumentation) All contribute to the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE Confirmation (repetition & replication) 3. Why is it important that we use phrases such as “the results suggest…” or “the evidence supports…” rather than using words such as “prove” or “proof”? Using words such as “prove” violate the tentative nature of science. They imply that scientific knowledge is concrete and unchanging. However, scientific knowledge must remain open to change. 4. Under what circumstances will a scientific theory become a law? Explain. A scientific theory will NEVER become a scientific law; it cannot, nor is it supposed to. A scientific theory and a scientific law are two different things with different purposes (an apple will never become an orange). 5. Why are scientific theories rarely discarded (completely abandoned), even when new evidence doesn’t fit within the current theory? Scientific theories are rarely completely discarded because they are heavily-tested and well-supported explanations. It is rare that new evidence completely invalidates a theory; rather, it is more likely that the theory can be “tweaked” or changed slightly to accommodate the new evidence. 6. What represents the BEST explanation that science can offer? Scientific theories represent the best explanations science has to offer. -
Laws in Metaphysics
LAWS IN METAPHYSICS BY TOBIAS WILSCH A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School—New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Philosophy Written under the direction of Jonathan Schaffer and approved by ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May, 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Laws in Metaphysics By TOBIAS WILSCH Dissertation director: Jonathan Schaffer The first two chapters of this dissertation defend the Deductive-Nomological Account of metaphysical explanation. Chapter 1 develops the Nomological Account of ground, – p1, …, pn ground q if and only if the laws of metaphysics determine q on the basis of p1, …, pn, – and the constructional theory of the metaphysical laws, – the laws are general principles that characterize construction-operations. Chapter 2 offers an analysis of the notion of determination involved in the Nomological Account: the laws determine q based on p1, …, pn if and only if q follows from p1, …, pn and the laws in the grounding-calculus. The grounding-calculus is characterized in terms of two inference rules and a suitable notion of ‘proof’. The rules are designed to analyze the input- and output notions that are intuitively associated with laws: the laws take some facts as input and deliver some other facts as output. ii Chapters 1 and 2 also go beyond the development of the positive view. Chapter 1 shows how the Nomological Account explains general patterns among grounding-truths, the modal force of ground, and certain connections between ground and construction. Chapter 2 shows why the Deductive-Nomological Account of metaphysical explanation escapes the objections to the traditional DN-account of scientific explanation, and it also outlines two views on logical explanation that are available to the proponent of the Nomological Account. -
LAW and ENCHANTMENT: the PLACE of Belieft
University of Michigan Law School University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository Articles Faculty Scholarship 1987 Law and Enchantment: The lP ace of Belief Joseph Vining University of Michigan Law School, [email protected] Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/1630 Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles Part of the Law and Philosophy Commons, and the Legal Profession Commons Recommended Citation Vining, Joseph. "Law and Enchantment: The lP ace of Belief." Mich. L. Rev. 86 (1987): 577-97. This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ESSAYS LAW AND ENCHANTMENT: THE PLACE OF BELIEFt Joseph Vining* I. THE QUESTION The question I wish to raise is whether one must believe what one says when one makes a statement of law. The language of belief that we know, and from which moral discourse and the moral never stray far: do judges, lawyers, law participate in it? Any such question is but an aspect of a larger question, indeed issue, of what we may call the objectivity of legal language. It is raised perhaps most acutely by the broad claims now being made for artificial intelligence and in particular for the computer programming of legal advice (as a species of what is called, in that field of applied science, an "expert system"). -
Law and Ideology: Critical Explorations
LAW AND IDEOLOGY: CRITICAL EXPLORATIONS Rafał Mańko* Michał Stambulski** According to Polish legal theorist Marek Zirk-Sadowski, the philosophy of law as a discipline can be approached from two distinct directions: either from the direction moving ‘from law to philosophy’, whereby lawyers try to answer the fundamental questions of jurisprudence by theorising on the basis of legal experience, or, in the opposite direction, that is ‘from philosophy to law’, whereby a certain philosopher or philosophical school is ‘applied’ to the legal field.1 Within the second paradigm of legal philosophy, in recent years there has been a growing tendency to analyse the implications of postmodernism, posthumanism2, or postructuralism upon the legal domain. Specialised volumes analysing the potential inspiration that can be drawn by critical lawyers from the works of such philosophers as Althusser, Deleuze and Gattari, Lefebvre, Agamben have been recently published.3 Most recently, even a volume on Žižek and Law came out.4 This special edition of the Wrocław Review of Law, Administration and Economics brings together a number of papers in which Polish and foreign scholars, both emergent and established, approach the topic of the DOI: 10.1515/wrlae-2015-0019 * Ph.D. in law (University of Amsterdam); external fellow at the Centre for the Study of European Contract Law (CSECL), University of Amsterdam. The views expressed in this paper do not represent the position of any institution. ** Centre for Legal Education and Social Theory, Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics, University of Wrocław. 1 Marek Zirk-Sadowski, Wprowadzenie do filozofii prawa [An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law] (Warszawa, Wolters Kluwer 2011). -
Kant on Obligation and Motivation in Law and Ethics
University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications - Department of Philosophy Philosophy, Department of 1994 Kant on Obligation and Motivation in Law and Ethics Nelson T. Potter Jr. University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/philosfacpub Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons, and the Legal History Commons Potter, Nelson T. Jr., "Kant on Obligation and Motivation in Law and Ethics" (1994). Faculty Publications - Department of Philosophy. 15. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/philosfacpub/15 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications - Department of Philosophy by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Potter in Jarbuch für Recht und Ethik (1994) 2. Copyright 1994, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Used by permission. Kant on Obligation and Motivation in Law and Ethics Nelson Potter I. There is a passage in Immanuel Kant's general introduction to both parts of Die Metaphysik der Sitten that deserves more attention than it has received. I plan to build the present paper around the implil:ations of this passage: In all lawgiving (Gesetzgebung) (whether it prescribes for internal or external actions, and whether it prescribes them a priori by reason alone or by the choice of another) there are two elements: first, a law, which represents an action that is to be done as objectively necessary, that is, which makes the action a duty; and second, an incentive, which connects a ground for determining choice to this action subjectively with the representation of the law. -
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD and the LAW by Bemvam L
Hastings Law Journal Volume 19 | Issue 1 Article 7 1-1967 The cS ientific ethoM d and the Law Bernard L. Diamond Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Bernard L. Diamond, The Scientific etM hod and the Law, 19 Hastings L.J. 179 (1967). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol19/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Law Journal by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND THE LAW By BEmVAm L. DIivmN* WHEN I was an adolescent, one of the major influences which determined my choice of medicine as a career was a fascinating book entitled Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine. This huge volume, originally published in 1897, is a museum of pictures and lurid de- scriptions of human monstrosities and abnormalities of all kinds, many with sexual overtones of a kind which would especially appeal to a morbid adolescent. I never thought, at the time I first read this book, that some day, I too, would be an anomaly and curiosity of medicine. But indeed I am, for I stand before you here as a most curious and anomalous individual: a physician, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and (I hope) a scientist, who also happens to be a professor of law. But I am not a lawyer, nor in any way trained in the law; hence, the anomaly. The curious question is, of course, why should a non-lawyer physician and scientist, like myself, be on the faculty of a reputable law school. -
Rules of Law, Laws of Science
Rules of Law, Laws of Science Wai Chee Dimock* My Essay is a response to legal realism,' to its well-known arguments against "rules of law." Legal realism, seeing itself as an empirical practice, was not convinced that there could be any set of rules, formalized on the grounds of logic, that would have a clear determinative power on the course of legal action or, more narrowly, on the outcome of litigated cases. The decisions made inside the courtroom-the mental processes of judges and juries-are supposedly guided by rules. Realists argued that they are actually guided by a combination of factors, some social and some idiosyncratic, harnessed to no set protocol. They are not subject to the generalizability and predictability that legal rules presuppose. That very presupposition, realists said, creates a gap, a vexing lack of correspondence, between the language of the law and the world it purports to describe. As a formal system, law operates as a propositional universe made up of highly technical terms--estoppel, surety, laches, due process, and others-accompanied by a set of rules governing their operation. Law is essentially definitional in this sense: It comes into being through the specialized meanings of words. The logical relations between these specialized meanings give it an internal order, a way to classify cases into actionable categories. These categories, because they are definitionally derived, are answerable only to their internal logic, not to the specific features of actual disputes. They capture those specific features only imperfectly, sometimes not at all. They are integral and unassailable, but hollowly so. -
George Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form Fifty Years On
MATHEMATICS TEACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 161 Special Issue on Philosophy of Mathematics Education Summer 2020 Vol 12 no 2 George Spencer-Brown’s laws of form fifty years on: why we should be giving it more attention in mathematics education Steven Watson University of Cambridge Abstract: George Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Forms was first published in 1969. In the fifty years since its publication, it has influenced mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, and sociologists. Its influence on mathematics education has been negligible. In this paper, I present a brief introduction to the theory and its philosophical underpinnings. And I set out an argument why Laws of Form should be given more attention in mathematics education. Introduction Last year (2019) marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Laws of Form (LoF), written by George Spencer-Brown (1969). Bertrand Russell described Laws of Form as, “a calculus of great power and simplicity. Not since Euclid’s Elements have we seen anything like it” (Homes, 2016). Heinz von Foerster, pioneer of second order cybernetics, offered no reserve in his praise for Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Form. The laws of form have finally been written! With a "Spencer-Brown" transistorized power razor (a Twentieth Century model of Occam's razor) G. Spencer-Brown cuts smoothly through two millennia of growth of the most prolific and persistent of semantic weeds, presenting us with his superbly written Laws of Form. This Herculean task which now, in retrospect, is of profound simplicity rests on his discovery of the form of laws. Laws are not descriptions, they are commands, injunctions: "Do!" Thus the first constructive proposition in this book (page 3) is the injunction: "Draw a distinction!" an exhortation to perform the primordial creative act (von Foerster, 1971, p.