CFP: Law-Based Explanations in the Sciences (LSE; 14-15 Sept 2026)

*Workshop: New Directions in Law-Based Explanations in the Sciences*
14–15 September 2026 (*Abstracts due 31 March 2026*)
Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of
Economics
London, United Kingdom
https://philevents.org/event/show/143450

*Workshop Description*
When we look at current research across the natural and social sciences
dealing with explanations of phenomena in their respective fields, the word
‘explanation’ is often modified with an adjective: causal, non-causal,
mechanistic, nomological/law-based, topological, mathematical, and
narrative are some of the non-mutually-exclusive modifiers that one may
encounter. It is generally accepted that fields such as physics rely more
on laws for their explanatory practices than disciplines such as cell
biology, which are, for the most part, concerned with mechanistic
explanations, for example. In the philosophy of science, particularly since
the advent of the New Mechanism literature in the 1990s, barring some
exceptions, there has been relatively little sustained work on the
pragmatic side of law-based explanations as opposed to other explanatory
modalities, and the interest that law-based explanations have garnered has
mostly focused on the metaphysics of laws. This workshop aims to bring the
philosophy of law-based explanations, with particular attention to their
pragmatic dimensions, back into focus. Moreover, while being historically
informed, the hope is to discuss new directions within this strand of the
philosophy of explanation. Some questions for consideration could include
(in no particular order):

– In the sciences that have traditionally relied more on law-based
explanations, are there any law-discovery programmes, or has the pool of
available laws reached a plateau in most law-heavy disciplines? How can one
begin such a programme in a law-light field?
– Has the strict law vs. *ceteris-paribus* law distinction, or the
terminological variety of law-talk such as ‘nomological’, ‘nomothetic’,
‘lawlike’, ‘generalisation’, ‘principle’, and so on, been conducive to, or
has it hindered, law-based explanations?
– How does a law-based explanation in physics or chemistry compare to a
law-based explanation in, say, linguistics (notwithstanding superficial
differences in subject matter)? Relatedly, do laws that could be said to
straddle autonomous fields, e.g., thermodynamic laws in physics and
chemistry, perform the same explanatory roles in both disciplines?
– How can laws and mechanisms gain traction in a combined
nomological–mechanistic explanation? Moreover, how can an ‘understanding’
of a given phenomenon based on a law-based explanation differ from an
‘understanding’ based on a mechanistic explanation of the same phenomenon?
– How can metaphysical claims and arguments about laws of science
translate into claims about the pragmatic role of laws in explanations?
– There have been successful modelling attempts using allometric scaling
laws in biology. But are laws, especially newly posited laws, more
refractory to modelling than, say, mechanisms? Relatedly, could laws be
integrated into existing models of a given mechanism?
– What lessons could be drawn from the philosophy of law (i.e. legal
philosophy) for law-based explanations in the sciences?

*Confirmed Speakers*

– Sepehr Ehsani (LSE): *can modelling the content of laws aid in their
explanatory use?*
– Amir Feizi (Gero AI): *laws of ageing and longevity*
– Alexander Gebharter (Marche Polytechnic University): *preconditions
for causal inference and non-causal laws*
– José Antonio Pérez Escobar (Universidad Nacional de Educación a
Distancia): *mathematical explanations in the sciences: principles,
laws, or rules?*
– Bryan Roberts (LSE): *do laws of symmetry explain or ground the
dynamical laws?*
– Deniz Sarikaya (Vrije Universiteit Brussel & Universität zu Lübeck): *laws
and theories in precision medicine*
– Hamed Tabatabaei Ghomi (King’s College London): *laws in medicine and
psychology*
– Philip H Thonemann (LSE): *pedagogical aspects of laws in physics
explanations*
– Jidong Wang (Fudan University & LSE): *laws in linguistics*

*Submissions*
Please send abstracts (maximum 500 words) to the organizer, Sepehr Ehsani (
S.Ehsani@lse.ac.uk), by *31 March 2026*. Talks will be for 20 minutes
followed by a 10-minute Q&A. Please indicate if your preference is for a
poster rather than a talk. Funding to partially offset travel expenses may
be available; details TBC.