PHIL 150 1st Edition Lecture 23 Outline of Last Lecture I. Unintended ConsequencesOutline of Current Lecture II. The Functions of General Laws in HistoryIII. The Journal of PhilosophyCurrent LectureThe Functions of General Laws in HistoryThe Functions of General Laws in History- It is a rather widely held opinion that history, in contra- distinction to the so-called physical sciences, is concerned with the description of particular events of the past rather than with the search for general laws which might govern those events.- General laws have quite analogous functions in history and in the natural sciences, that they form an indispensable instrument of historical research, and that they even constitute the common basis of various procedures which are often considered as characteristic of the social in contradistinction to the natural sciences- The term "law" sug- gests the idea that the statement in question is actually well con- firmed by the relevant evidence available; as this qualification is, in many cases, irrelevant for our purpose, we shall frequently use the term "hypothesis of universal form" or briefly "universal hypothesis" instead of "general law," and state the condition of satisfactory confirmation separatelyThe Journal of Philosophy- The scientific explanation of the event in question consists of(1) A set of statements asserting the occurrence of certain events C1, . . . C, at certain times and places,(2) a set of universal hypotheses, such thatThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.(a) the statements of both groups are reasonably well con-firmed by empirical evidence,(b) from the two groups of statements the sentence assertingthe occurrence of event E can be logically
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