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What is ‘Normal‘? An Evolution-Theoretic Foundation for Normic Laws and Their Relation to Statistical Normality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Gerhard Schurz
Gerhard Schurz*
Affiliation:
University of Erfurt
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Universität Erfurt, Postfach 900221, D-99006 Erfurt, Germany; e-mail: gerhard.schurz@uni-erfurt.de
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Abstract

Normic laws have the form “if A, then normally B.” They are omnipresent in everyday life and non-physical ‘life’ sciences such as biology, psychology, social sciences, and humanities. They differ significantly from ceteris-paribus laws in physics. While several authors have doubted that normic laws are genuine laws at all, others have argued that normic laws express a certain kind of prototypical normality which is independent of statistical majority. This paper presents a foundation for normic laws which is based on generalized evolution theory and explains their omnipresence, lawlikeness, and reliability. It is argued that the fact that normic laws are a product of evolution must establish a systematic connection between prototypical and statistical normality.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , December 2001 , pp. 476 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 2001

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Footnotes

‡

Work on this paper was supported by the Research Grant F012 of the FWF, Austria. For valuable help I am indebted to two anonymous referees.

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