Models: The Blueprints for Laws

Cartwright, N.

doi:10.1086/392608

Models: The Blueprints for Laws

Cartwright, N.

Authors

Professor Nancy Cartwright nancy.cartwright@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

In this paper the claim that laws of nature are to be understood as claims about what necessarily or reliably happens is disputed. Laws can characterize what happens in a reliable way, but they do not do this easily. We do not have laws for everything occurring in the world, but only for those situations where what happens in nature is represented by a model: models are blueprints for nomological machines, which in turn give rise to laws. An example from economics shows, in particular, how we use--and how we need to use--models to get probabilistic laws.

Citation

Cartwright, N. (1997). Models: The Blueprints for Laws. Philosophy of Science, 64, S292-S303. https://doi.org/10.1086/392608

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Dec 1, 1997
Deposit Date	Sep 24, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Jul 27, 2016
Journal	Philosophy of Science
Print ISSN	0031-8248
Publisher	Philosophy of Science Association
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	64
Pages	S292-S303
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1086/392608