Special cases, composition of causes, and the complexity of nature

It is often held by philosophers of science that special, idealized situations are prior to complex cases in several senses: equations for complex cases are derived from those for special cases by “composing” special case equations; behavior in complex cases is explained in terms of behavior in special cases; one learns the true nature of a property in the special case where it is allowed to work in isolation. In this paper, I argue that a strand of non-equilibrium thermodynamics which attempts to go beyond the limitations of classical non-equilibrium thermodynamics adheres to something that is the reverse of this picture. Thus, the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of this picture lies very near to the heart of foundational issues in non-equilibrium thermodynamics.