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Universal Laws (universal + law)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	42%

Selected Abstracts

From the Good Will to the Formula of Universal Law,

PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2004
SAMUEL C. RICKLESS
In the First Section of the Groundwork, Kant argues that a good-willed person "under subjective limitations and hindrances" is required "never to act except in such a way that [she] could also will that [her] maxim should become a universal law." Call this argument "K". Although recent commentators (including Barbara Herman, Christine Korsgaard, Nelson Potter, and Allen Wood) have done much to clarify and defend many of the important claims Kant makes in the First Section, they have accurately identified neither K's premises nor the reasoning by means of which K's conclusion is derived. The result of this is that K's strengths are underappreciated. My aim is to rectify this state of affairs, by providing a detailed reconstruction of K, and thereby bring out the various ways in which the argument deserves our recognition and praise. [source]

From Universal Laws of Cognition to Specific Cognitive Models

COGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 1 2008
Nick Chater
Abstract The remarkable successes of the physical sciences have been built on highly general quantitative laws, which serve as the basis for understanding an enormous variety of specific physical systems. How far is it possible to construct universal principles in the cognitive sciences, in terms of which specific aspects of perception, memory, or decision making might be modelled? Following Shepard (e.g., 1987), it is argued that some universal principles may be attainable in cognitive science. Here, 2 examples are proposed: the simplicity principle (which states that the cognitive system prefers patterns that provide simpler explanations of available data); and the scale-invariance principle, which states that many cognitive phenomena are independent of the scale of relevant underlying physical variables, such as time, space, luminance, or sound pressure. This article illustrates how principles may be combined to explain specific cognitive processes by using these principles to derive SIMPLE, a formal model of memory for serial order (Brown, Neath, & Chater, 2007), and briefly mentions some extensions to models of identification and categorization. This article also considers the scope and limitations of universal laws in cognitive science. [source]

Theology and the Crisis in Darwinism

MODERN THEOLOGY, Issue 2 2002
Anthony D. Baker
In the past decade, the scientific challenges to "orthodox Darwinism" have multiplied rapidly, such that it is no longer unthinkable that natural selection's days as a universal law are numbered. But if this is the case, theologians have their work cut out for them. If Darwin's law proves to be historically and scientifically false, a new horizon appears for the discourse between theology and natural science. What will orthodox Christianity make of the crisis in Darwinism? This article, which follows the methodological imperative of "Radical Orthodoxy", employs Aquinas and contemporary "post-Darwinian" science to trace a space for a theological discourse beyond both natural selection and natural theology. [source]

From the Good Will to the Formula of Universal Law,

Are ecological and evolutionary theories scientific?

BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS, Issue 2 2001
BERTRAM G. MURRAY Jr.
ABSTRACT Scientists observe nature, search for generalizations, and provide explanations for why the world is as it is. Generalizations are of two kinds. The first are descriptive and inductive, such as Boyle's Law. They are derived from observations and therefore refer to observables (in this case, pressure and volume). The second are often imaginative and form the axioms of a deductive theory, such as Newton's Laws of Motion. They often refer to unobservables (e.g. inertia and gravitation). Biology has many inductive generalizations (e.g. Bergmann's Rule and ,all cells arise from preexisting cells') but few, if any, recognized universal laws and virtually no deductive theory. Many biologists and philosophers of biology have agreed that predictive theory is inappropriate in biology, which is said to be more complex than physics, and that one can have nonpredictive explanations, such as the neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Other philosophers dismiss nonpredictive, explanatory theories, including evolutionary ,theory', as metaphysics. Most biologists do not think of themselves as philosophers or give much thought to the philosophical basis of their research. Nevertheless, their philosophy shows in the way they do research. The plethora of ad hoc (i.e. not universal) hypotheses indicates that biologists are reluctant inductivists in that the search for generalization does not have a high priority. Biologists test their hypotheses by verification. Theoretical physicists, in contrast, are deductive unifiers and test their explanatory hypotheses by falsification. I argue that theoretical biology (concerned with unobservables, such as fitness and natural selection) is not scientific because it lacks universal laws and predictive theory. In order to make this argument, I review the differences between verificationism and falsificationism, induction and deduction, and descriptive and explanatory laws. I show how these differ with a specific example of a successful and still useful (even if now superseded as explanatory) deductive theory, Newton's Theory of Motion. I also review some of the philosophical views expressed on these topics because philosophers seem to be even more divided than biologists, which is not at all helpful. The fact that biology does not have predictive theories does not constitute irrefutable evidence that it cannot have them. The only way to falsify this philosophical hypothesis, however, is to produce a predictive theory with universal biological laws. I have proposed such a theory, but it has been presented piecemeal. At the end of this paper, I bring the pieces together into a deductive theory on the evolution of life history traits (e.g. clutch size, mating relationships, sexual size dimorphism). [source]