Ceteris Paribus Laws and the Human Sciences

In opposition to the traditional conception of scientific laws as universal and exceptionless generalizations that hold everywhere and throughout all times, some philosophers of science have proposed the idea of a ceteris paribus law (CP law), i.e., a law that is true " all else being equal " , in the sense that it can admit of exceptions because of the influence of interfering factors. The legitimacy of CP laws has divided the philosophical community. Some argue that all scientific laws are CP laws, others argue that CP laws are simply unacceptable, and a third group claims that science contains both CP laws (in the so-called special sciences) and strict laws (in basic physics). The debate on CP laws has important implications for our understanding of the human sciences, because if we accept the existence of laws in sciences like psychology or sociology, these laws, far from being strict, should be CP laws. Furthermore, if we could establish some differences between CP laws in the human and the natural sciences, such a difference could help us to understand the relation between these two scientific domains. In what follows, I will first discuss the concept of CP law and present some proponents of such laws (1). In order to explore the significance of this debate for the human sciences, I will discuss Da-vidson's and Fodor's stance on the status of CP laws in the human sciences (2). After these introductory sections, I will argue that in the human sciences it is much more difficult, not only in practice, but also in principle, to cope with interfering factors and to refine ceteris paribus clauses (3). Against hermeneutic and strict naturalistic perspectives, I propose an account of the human sciences that rec