Laws, chances and properties

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 4 (2):159-170 (1990)
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Abstract

The paper develops a unified account of both deterministic and indeterministic laws of nature which inherits the merits but not the defects of the best existing accounts. As in Armstrong's account, laws are embodied in facts about universals; but not in higher‐order relations between them, and the necessity of laws is not primitive but results from their containing chances of 0 or 1. As in the Ramsey‐Lewis account, law statements would be the general axioms and theorems of the simplest deductive theory of everything; but because laws are not so defined, simplicity of statement is not a criterion of law‐hood.

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Author's Profile

Hugh Mellor
Last affiliation: Cambridge University

Citations of this work

Laws of nature, natural history, and the description of the world.James W. McAllister - 1997 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 11 (3):245 – 258.

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References found in this work

Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1965 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
A Materialist Theory of the Mind.D. M. Armstrong - 1968 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Ted Honderich.
The Logic of Decision.Richard C. Jeffrey - 1965 - New York, NY, USA: University of Chicago Press.
What is a Law of Nature?D. M. Armstrong - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Sydney Shoemaker.

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