Are Functional Relations Always the Alter Ego of Humean Laws

Bibliographic Data

ID12229634
AuthorsMark Setterfield (0000-0002-5483-5500, Trinity College, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume19
Issue2
Pages203-217
Publication date2007-04-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReview of Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0953-8259 • E-ISSN: 1465-3982
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09538250701256763
OpenAlexW2000064694
LanguageEN
References cited19

It has recently been suggested in the pages of this journal that ‘functional relations are the alter ego of Humean laws’ (Fleetwood, 2001 Fleetwood, S. 2001. Causal laws, functional relations and tendencies. Review of Political Economy, 13: 201–220. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], p. 205). Based on the identification of an open-systems, ceteris-paribus (OSCP) approach to formal modelling, it is argued that this claim is true only some of the time and problematic only some of the time that it is true. The paper goes on to demonstrate that functional relations that are consistent with the OSCP approach to formal modelling can provide useful tools in various domains of the stratified ontology identified by critical realists. The OSCP approach to formalism is contrasted with a second, axiomatic approach to formalism that is identified as advising the mainstream formal modelling project

Axiom · Ceteris paribus · Economics · Epistemology · Formalism (music · Id, ego and super-ego · Mainstream · Mathematical economics · Political science · Critical Realism in Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology · Social Psychology

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