Blackwell Reference Online

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Philosophy of science The success of Newtonian physics led many scientists and philosophers to believe that there is a natural order governed by the laws of nature . Given the initial state of a system, we can determine any future state by applying the laws of nature and the information about the initial state. Phenomena are necessary outcomes of the operation of laws in the situations that produce them. The future occurrence of an event is predictable. Chance is a name for our ignorance of the laws of nature or of the antecedent conditions of the event . The association of determinism and scientific predictability was established by Laplace. Determinism was widely accepted as a fundamental principle of science and as the very essence of scientific understanding. The truth of science seemed to prove that the whole universe must indeed be a vast and intricate mechanism . In spite of its great prestige, scientific determinism was challenged by the theory of relativity , chaos theory, and quantum mechanics. As a result, the debate between determinism and indeterminism has generated major tensions in the philosophy of science. Traditionally, this debate has occurred mainly in physics, although biological determinists have gained support for the claim that the development of a person is determined by his genetic inheritance. “Science is inconceivable without determinism, ... log in or subscribe to read full text