Which Universal?

PSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988 (1):24-30 (1988)
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Abstract

D.A. Armstrong’s account (1983, intimately influenced by Tooley 1977 and Swoyer 1982) of natural laws is that they arerelations between universals.Armstrong doesn’t simply hold that laws are some relationships or other between universals. He also holds that they are first-order universals themselves (1983, pp. 89-90). Each ordinary law-say,causallaw-is numerically identical to some first-order universal. This is a striking, seemingly incredible hypothesis. What is Armstrong thinking of when he says (1983, p. 90):I propose that the state of affairs, the law, N(F,G), is a dyadic universal, that is, a relation, holding between states of affairs. Suppose that a particular object, a, is F, and so, because of the law N(F,G), it, a, is also G. This state of affairs, an instantiation of the law, has the form Rab, where R = N(F,G), a = a’s being F, and b, = b’s being G:(N(F,G))(a's being F, b's being G).

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References found in this work

Situations and attitudes.Jon Barwise & John Perry - 1981 - Journal of Philosophy 78 (11):668-691.
Word and Object.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1960 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 17 (2):278-279.
The nature of laws.Michael Tooley - 1977 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (4):667-98.
» The Nature of Natural Laws «.Chris Swoyer - 1982 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 60 (3):1982.
Causation, nomic subsumption, and the concept of event.Jaegwon Kim - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (8):217-236.

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