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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1995 46(1):81-110; doi:10.1093/bjps/46.1.81
© 1995 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
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When Other Things Aren't Equal: Saving Ceteris Paribus Laws from Vacuity

Paul Pietroski1 and Georges Rey2

1Department of Philosophy, McGill University Montreal PQ H3A 2T7, Canada
2Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742, USA

A common view is that ceteris paribus clauses render lawlike statements vacuous, unless such clauses can be explicitly reformulated as antecedents of ‘real’ laws that face no counterinstances. But such reformulations are rare; and they are not, we argue, to be expected in general. So we defend an alternative sufficient condition for the non-vacuity of ceteris paribus laws: roughly, any counterinstance of the law must be independently explicable, in a sense we make explicit. Ceteris paribus laws will carry a plethora of explanatory commitments; and claims that such commitments are satisfied will be as (dis) confirmable as other empirical claims.


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