Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

In Praise of the Representation Theorem

Cartwright, N

In Praise of the Representation Theorem Thumbnail


Authors



Contributors

M Frauchiger
Editor

W.K Essler
Editor

Abstract

This paper will take up three of Patrick Suppes’s favourite topics: representation, invariance and causality. I begin not immediately with Suppes’s own work but with that of his Stanford colleague, Michael Friedman. Friedman argues that various high level claims of physics theories are not empirical laws at all but rather constitutive principles, principles without which the concepts of the theory would lack empirical content. I do not disagree about the need for constitutive principles. Rather I think Friedman has mislocated them, and entirely at the wrong end of the scale of abstraction. It is representation theorems, as Pat pictures them, that are the true constitutive principles, and that is true for theories far beyond physics.

Citation

Cartwright, N. (2008). In Praise of the Representation Theorem. In M. Frauchiger, & W. Essler (Eds.), Representation, evidence, and justification : themes from Suppes (83-90). Ontos Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110323566.83

Publication Date Jan 1, 2008
Deposit Date Sep 22, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Pages 83-90
Series Title Lauener library of analytical philosophy
Series Number 1
Book Title Representation, evidence, and justification : themes from Suppes
DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110323566.83

Files

Accepted Book Chapter (194 Kb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
Nancy Cartwright,'In praise of the representation theorem' in: Frauchiger, Michael / Essler, Wilhelm K. (ed.) of Representation, Evidence, and Justification: Themes from Suppes, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2008, pp. 83 – 90





You might also like



Downloadable Citations