The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science

by Nancy Cartwright

• ISBN13: 9780521643368
• ISBN10: 0521643368
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

It is often supposed that the spectacular successes of our modern mathematical sciences support a lofty vision of a world completely ordered by one single elegant theory. In this book Nancy Cartwright argues to the contrary. When we draw our image of the world from the way modern science works - as empiricism teaches us we should - we end up with a world where some features are precisely ordered, others are given to rough regularity and still others behave in their own diverse ways. This patchwork makes sense when we realise that laws are very special productions of nature, requiring very special arrangements for their generation. Combining classic and newly written essays on physics and economics, The Dappled World carries important philosophical consequences and offers serious lessons for both the natural and the social sciences.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Introduction	1	(20)
Part I Where do laws of nature come from?	21	(54)
Fundamentalism versus the patchwork of laws	23	(12)
Fables and models	35	(34)
Nomological machines and the laws they produce	69	(6)
Part II Laws and their limits	75	(102)
The laws we test in physics
Aristotelian natures and the modern experimental method	77	(27)
Causal laws
Causal diversity; causal stability	104	(33)
Current economic theory
Ceteris paribus laws and socio-economic machines	137	(15)
Probabilistic laws
Probability machines: chance set-ups and economic models	152	(25)
Part III The boundaries of quantum and classical physics and the territories they share	177	(57)
How bridge principles set the domain of quantum theory	179	(32)
How quantum and classical theories relate	211	(23)
Bibliography	234	(8)
Index	242