PHI 30 Lecture 3: Lambert and Britten_Notes
Document Summary
Hempel said laws are statements of universal form. Lambert and britten show that hempel"s assumptions are problematic. We have theories, we have the world. Lambert and britten say laws are parts of theories. Midterm questions (7-10: are laws regularities, are they generalizations, are they statements of universal form? laws statements that express regularities, except that laws are not things we create or in the world. Problem with hempel"s statement that laws have to be true. For instance, laws in the past have to be false. In conclusion, laws are neither true nor false. General principles, function to provide theoretical framework (in theories) Laws don"t tell us how the world is (descriptive), they tell us how we should (normative) think about the world. Law = lawlike sentence (taking out the notion of truth) Do not believe laws have truth value!! Pushing all of the issues into what do we mean by theory? .
