Blackwell Reference Online

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It is widely held by both scientists and philosophers that our universe is governed by scientific laws and that it is one of the primary aims of science to discover these laws. Particular scientific subjects are often organized around laws stated in the vocabulary of that subject. For example, Schrödinger's equation is central to physics, the Hardy–Weinberg law to genetics, and equilibrium laws to economics. It is also widely held that the concept of a scientific law is intimately related to other important concepts including CAUSATION ( see the extended essay), natural kind , explanation, confirmation, reduction, necessity, and probability. ( See reduction, reductionism .) It is not surprising then that the task of elucidating the concept of a scientific law figures prominently within contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of science. Most writers on laws agree that law statements express regularities of some sort or other. For example, Boyle's Law, PV = kT , expresses a regularity relating the pressure, volume, and temperature of “ideal” gases. One way of formulating the problem of laws is by asking what distinguishes lawful from accidental regularities. Lawful regularities are said to be in some sense necessary and capable of bestowing some kind of necessity on events which they subsume. The necessity involved is sufficient to support COUNTERFACTUALS. For example, Boyle's ... log in or subscribe to read full text