A Dual-Role Account of Ceteris Paribus Laws

Abstract

Issues concerning the meaning and legitimacy of a ceteris paribus (cp) law statement have been heatedly debated in recent philosophy of science. I argue that a main inadequacy of some major attempts to resolve those issues derives from the failure to accommodate both the objective and subjective aspects of making a cp-law statement. I offer a dual-role account to address this inadequacy. This semantic inquiry exploits empirical studies on the actual linguistic practice of scientists in various professional communities, with the aim to better expose what a cp-law statement means and what the nature of science may be.