Nomic Necessity and Natural States: Comment on the Leckey—Bigelow Theory of Laws

Abstract

It is a widely held belief that the laws of nature, although necessary in a restricted sense of the word, could have been different from what they are in this world. This view that the laws may have been otherwise is known as the contingency theory of laws. In recent years, however, the domination of this popular doctrine has been challenged by a new analysis of lawhood that denies the contingency thesis. This new analysis, known as Essentialism, rebuts the claim that the laws of nature are contingent. According to the essentialist doctrine, laws are necessary in that they are grounded in, and thus dependent on the essential natures of the fundamental natural kinds of objects and processes that occur in the world.