What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to establish criteria that validate ceteris paribus laws and prevent their loss of meaning.

March 1, 1995

When Other Things Aren't Equal: Saving Ceteris Paribus Laws from Vacuity

PPPaul M. PietroskiRutgers, The State University of New Jersey GRGeorges ReyPurchase College

Key Points

The aim is to establish criteria that validate ceteris paribus laws and prevent their loss of meaning.
Evaluation of existing views on ceteris paribus clauses and their implications for lawlike statements.
Development of an alternative condition for validating ceteris paribus laws that accounts for counterinstances.
Ceteris paribus laws can be meaningful even when reformulations are rare.
Counterinstances must be independently explicable, which enhances the credibility of these laws.

Abstract

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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