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Cartwright on fundamentallaws: A response to ClarkeAlan Chalmers aa University of SydneyPublished online: 02 Jun 2006.

To cite this article: Alan Chalmers (1996) Cartwright on fundamental laws:A response to Clarke, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74:1, 150-152, DOI:10.1080/00048409612347121

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Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 74, No. 1; March 1996

CARTWRIGHT ON FUNDAMENTAL LAWS: A RESPONSE TO CLARKE

Alan Chalmers

In a recent article in this Journal [5] I argued that the case that Nancy Cartwright made in

How the Laws of Physics Lie [1] for rejecting fundamental laws as true descriptions of

the world is in effect undermined in her second book, Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement [2]. Steve Clarke [6] claims that my critique of Cartwright is based on a

misunderstanding of her position, and, drawing on a more recent article by Cartwright

[3], attempts to construe that position in a way that can accommodate a non-realist inter-

pretation of fundamental laws that is immune to my criticism. I remain unconvinced that

a strong case against a realist interpretation of fundamental laws has been made.

Happenings in the world are rarely connected in a lawlike way. Autumn leaves rarely

fall to the ground with a uniform acceleration in accordance with Galileo's law of fall.

Observations such as these were a key reason behind the claim in [1] that laws lie. In

[4], prior to the appearance of [2], I argued that this conclusion does not follow if laws

are taken to describe powers or tendencies. The falling leaf can be assumed to possess

the tendency to fall precisely as specified by the law of gravitation throughout its fall, the

fact that it does not fall with a uniform acceleration being attributed to other factors such

as winds and air resistance. Many philosophers, especially those sympathetic to Hume,

will not be happy with this introduction of an ontology of powers and tendencies and

allied notions such as dispositional properties and propensities. However, with the publi-

cation of [2] Cartwright showed that she is not to be counted amongst such philosophers,

because in that book she introduces an ontology of capacities, which differ only in name

from what I and others have referred to as powers or tendencies. My argument in [5]

was that once she has made this move all the objections to a realist interpretation of fun-

damenta l laws are removed . Fundamenta l laws descr ibe the way of act ing of

fundamental capacities.

Clarke correctly attributes to me the view that capacities stand to laws as truth makers

to truth bearers, and he correctly points out that this is the interpretation I imposed on

Cartwright's [2]. Clarke argues that I am mistaken in interpreting Cartwright's position

in this way. According to Clarke, it is not Cartwright's view that fundamental laws stand

to capacities as truth-bearers to truth-makers. Rather, fundamental laws are °licences to

export information about capacities from ideal, simple circumstances to complex, world-

ly ones' [6, p. xx]. We acquire a satisfying understanding of a real-world situation, it

would appear, by describing an ideal situation, governed by fundamental laws, that is

like, but not identical to, it. We, perhaps, understand why a real autumn leaf fails to the

ground by applying Newton 's laws to show how a massive object would accelerate

towards the earth in a vacuum.

Clarke's interpretation of Cartwright has the merit of removing contradictions that I

found in [1] and [2] and is also born out to some extent by Cartwright's elaboration of

her views in [3]. In this reply I will assume that Clarke's formulation is the correct ren-

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Alan Chalmers 151

dering of Cartwright's position, but will argue that this formulation poses no more of an

obstacle to a realist interpretation of fundamental laws than my initial, and perhaps

uncharitable, reading of her position.

Given that this whole discussion presupposes a realism with respect to powers or

capacities, there is a ready response to Clarke that shows how a realist view of funda-

mental laws can be retained. In my example of the falling leaf, it can be supposed that the leaf has a capacity to fall in accordance with Newton's laws throughout its descent,

but that other of its capacities, such as that to respond to breezes, governed by other

laws, are also operative, resulting in the leaf's uneven motion. Why will not Clarke, on

Cartwright's behalf, allow me this response? It seems to me that the crux of the matter is that they have in mind a world in which the capacities that act in accordance with funda-

mental laws in idealised, experimental situations actually change outside of those

situations. Fundamental laws lie because they attribute an unchanging behaviour to

capacities which in fact change when interacting with other capacities.

If I am right that it is the possible variance of nature's capacities that blocks the way to a realist construal of fundamental laws, then Clarke's formulation of the difference

between my interpretation of Cartwright and his is not appropriate. On this reading both

Cartwright and I see the relationship between laws and capacities as that of truth-bearer to truth-maker. The difference is that I see invariant capacities rendering fundamental

laws true, whilst Cartwright sees variable capacities rendering them false.

There is certainly nothing problematic about the notion of a variable capacity. Matches lose their capacity to ignite when they become damp and gases lose their capac-

ity to obey Boyle ' s law near liquefaction. However, we typically take changing

capacities as targets for explanation in science, and what is more, frequently explain them by appealing to more fundamental capacities governed by more fundamental laws.

This is precisely the situation in the case of the explanation of Boyle's law and depar-

tures from it by appeal to the kinetic theory. It is, of course, possible that we live in a world in which fundamental capacities are subject to variations that are completely con-

tingent and inexplicable. This seems to be the interpretation Clarke gives to Cartwright's talk of a world involving a disunified patchwork of laws of nature. I suggest that to

accept that some change in capacity is inexplicable is to conclude that science has

reached its limits. By contrast, the scientific way is to attempt to explain changing

capacities by appealing to unchanging ones at a deeper level, and scientists who adopt this strategy can be encouraged by the success it has had in the past.

An element of Cartwright's position stressed by Clarke is the view that the assump-

tion that the world is governed by fundamental laws is unduly metaphysical and involves

the gratuitous assumption that we live in a tidy world. One response I have to this is that

a world governed by fundamental laws can be a very untidy world to the extent that it can conform to Cartwright's vision of a world of 'tens of thousands of patches, cut up in

no particular logical way, exhibiting tens of thousands of different regularities of count- less different forms' [3, p. 298]. A patch in the interior of the Sun will differ markedly

from a region in outer space devoid of matter or from a patch deep in the Atlantic Ocean.

Capacities will be instantiated and inter-related in quite different ways in such highly dif-

fering regions, but not in a way that need threaten the claim that fundamental laws are true. Varying initial conditions rather than untrue laws can be held responsible for the

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152 Cartwright on Fundamental Laws: A Response to Clarke

untidiness. It should also be noted that a realism with respect to fundamental laws need

not commit one to a strong reductionist view that all laws be reduced to the fundamental

laws of physics, nor does it imply that the number of fundamental laws of physics be few

in number. Holding fundamental laws to be true is compatible with the view that there

are many such laws governing a very messy, very patchy world.

Cartwright's case for the reality of causes and phenomenological laws and against

fundamental laws is not metaphysical in the sense to which Hume objected. She takes

science and its practice for granted and asks what is implicit in that practice. I totally

endorse that strategy and see my defence of a realistic interpretation of fundamental laws

as constructed in a similar way. To claim that the world cannot be such that, for

instance, fundamental capacities a re subject to variations that exhibit no particular pat-

tern and which are subject to no explanation would be to claim too much, just as it would

be to claim too much to insist that our world is in all respects one in which science must

be successful. My more restricted claim, which is in line with Cartwright's general strat-

egy but contrary to her specific claims, is that an interpretation of fundamental laws as

candidates for true descriptions of the world is implicit in the practice of physics. A

qualification is necessary here. It may well be that there is no adequate realist response

to some of the specific difficulties that Cartwright raises for a realistic interpretation of

some aspects of modern physics, such as those that surround the status of some of the

statistical distributions that figure in statistical mechanics or some of the organising prin-

ciples that appear in fundamental particle physics. However, Cartwright's case against a

realist interpretation of fundamental laws is a general one. She includes Newton's laws

and Maxwell 's equations, for example, in that category. Cartwright's case does not con-

vince me that such laws cannot be regarded as strong candidates for the truth, Clarke's

reading of that case notwithstanding.

University of Sydney. Received September 1994

REFERENCES

1. N. Cartwright, How the Laws of Physics Lie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). 2. N. Cartwright, Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). 3. N. Cart-wright, 'Is Natural Science "Natural" Enough? A Reply to Phillip Allport', Synthese 94

(1993) pp. 291-301. 4. A. Chalmers, 'Bhaskar, Cartwright and Realism in Physics', Methodology and Science 20

(1987) pp. 77-96. 5. A. Chalmers, 'So the Laws of Physics Needn't Lie', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71

(1993) pp. 196-205. 6. S. Clarke, 'The Lies Remain the Same. A Reply to Chalmers', Australasian Journal of

Philosophy 73 (1995) pp. 152-155.

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