Necessary Laws
In Jan Faye, Paul Needham, Uwe Scheffler & Max Urchs (eds.), Nature’s Principles. Springer (2005)
| Abstract | In the first part of this paper, I argue against the view that laws of nature are contingent, by attacking a necessary condition for its truth within the framework of a conception of laws as relations between universals. I try to show that there is no independent reason to think that universals have an essence independent of their nomological properties. However, such a non-qualitative essence is required to make sense of the idea that different laws link the same universals in different possible worlds. In the second part, I give a positive argument for the necessity of at least some laws of nature, by showing with the example of a paradigmatic law of association that it consists in an internal relation between two universals which are determinables of the same class of determinates, where this relation is essential to both. Furthermore, I show that the necessity of laws of association could be accommodated within David Lewis' Humean metaphysics, but that it is incompatible with David Armstrong's combinatorialism. | |||||||||
| Keywords | necessity combinatorialism Humean determinable determinate law of nature internal relation universal association law Armstrong | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
  |
| External links |
 Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesDuncan Maclean (2012). Armstrong and van Fraassen on Probabilistic Laws of Nature. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 42 (1):1-13.
D. H. Mellor (1990). Laws, Chances and Properties. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 4 (2):159 – 170.
Philip L. Peterson (1988). Which Universal? PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988:24 - 30.
D. M. Armstrong (1983). What is a Law of Nature? Cambridge University Press.
Marc Lange (2006). How to Account for the Relation Between Chancy Facts and Deterministic Laws. Mind 115 (460):917--946.
Tyler Hildebrand (forthcoming). Tooley's Account of the Necessary Connection Between Law and Regularity. Philosophical Studies.
Markus Schrenk (2010). The Powerlessness of Necessity. Noûs 44 (4):725-739.
Markus Schrenk (2011). Interfering with Nomological Necessity. Philosophical Quarterly 61 (244):577-597.
Stephen Mumford (2005). Laws and Lawlessness. Synthese 144 (3):397?413.
Alexander Bird (2001). Necessarily, Salt Dissolves in Water. Analysis 61 (4):267–274.
John Bolender (2006). Nomic Universals and Particular Causal Relations: Which Are Basic and Which Are Derived? Philosophia 34 (4):405-410.
Markus Schrenk (2005). The Bookkeeper and the Lumberjack. Metaphysical Vs. Nomological Necessity. In G. Abel (ed.), Kreativität. XX. Deutscher Kongress für Philosophie. Sektionsbeiträge Band 1. Universitätsverlag der Technischen Universität.
Benjamin Smart (2013). Is the Humean Defeated by Induction? Philosophical Studies 162 (2):319-332.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2012-06-19Total downloads12 ( #93,408 of 549,113 )Recent downloads (6 months)11 ( #6,081 of 549,113 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
