Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 27 Fall 2009

              Laws and Tropes
i
The logical positivists offered an account of the structure of physical theory
which is attractive and simple. It rests on a distinction between the theory itself
and verifiable empirical laws which may confirm that theory.
Experimental laws in this view have a rock-bottom incorrigible status that is denied to
theories. Any theory is subject to revision or replacement, but any subsequent theory, if it is
to be acceptable, must be consistent with the experimental laws previously known to be true.
(1967 Encyclopedia of Philosophy 4-405)
"When this doctrine is seen in a linguistic context, it may take the form of a distinction
between empirical and theoretical terms: with the former, there is a direct interface
with the outside world which brings to the theory its validity; the theoretical terms, on
the other hand, are constructs worth nothing in the absence of experimental
confirmation. Science, or at least physical science, deals with valid laws expressible
entirely using empirical terms, and places them in a theoretical framework.
Essential to this account, which I shall call the "doctrine of laws and theories", or
just 'Moctrme", is the stability and permanence of the laws, independent of whatever
theory they might be thought to confirm. With this doctrine, the known laws of
physics are seen as rock solid. They are stable and permanent, direct transcriptions of
the actual movements of matter. If correct, this doctrine would disprove subjectivist
claims that the results of physics are in fact relative to the physicist or to the society in
which it arises; it offers an explanation of the remarkable accuracy and success of
modern physics. Although the laws on which theory rests are reliable, theoretical
constructions do not have this stability; one theory may be replaced by a second very
different one if the second gives a better theoretical demonstration of the laws. With
this account, one can make sense of the radical changes that sometimes take place in
accepted theories, since the stable laws remain, and reflect our experimental contact
with the external world, whereas theories are free constructions from the basic data
that are always subject to revision.
To this well-known claim there is an equally well-known objection, which arises
in a variety of different ways: it is difficult or impossible to separate the laws from the
theory, and to prevent contamination by influences from the theory on the design of
experiments and on the data which are gathered. Observations are theory-laden.
... perhaps all observations are theory-laden, either because our perceptions of the world are
coloured by perceptual, linguistic, and cultural differences or because no attempt to
distinguish sharply between observation and theory has been successful (1995 Cambridge
Dictionary of Philosophy 797)
Data that are collected may be dependent to some extent on our assumptions and
conventions. The very separation of laws from theories is questionable. Due to these
and other obstacles, the doctrine of laws and theories has some time ago faded into the
background. Like other theories advanced during the optimistic days of logical
positivism, this is seen as lacking the complexity required. Perhaps nothing this
sweeping can be expected; an investigator might better look to individual theories,
which differ considerably one from the other.
I believe that we can give an account of the achievements of experimental physics
and a partial but useful response to doubters through a revision of the doctrine of laws
and theories. This will help to discredit claims that the theorems of physical science