It has recently been suggested in the pages of this journal that 'functional relations are the alter ego of Humean laws' (Fleetwood, 2001, 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.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.