The Problem of Nomological Harmony

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Noûs (forthcoming)
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Abstract

Our universe features a harmonious match between laws and states: applying its laws to its states generates other states. This is a striking fact. Matters might have been otherwise. The universe might have been stillborn in a state unengaged by its laws. The problem of nomological harmony is that of explaining the noted striking fact. After introducing and developing this problem, we canvass candidate solutions and identify some of their virtues and vices. Candidate solutions invoke the likes of a designer, axiarchic meta-laws, multiverses, essential causal powers, and Humean laws.

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10.1111/nous.12463

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Author Profiles

Brian Cutter
University of Notre Dame
Bradford Saad
University of Oxford

Citations of this work

Fine-Tuning Should Make Us More Confident that Other Universes Exist.Bradford Saad - 2024 - American Philosophical Quarterly 61 (1):29-44.
From Moral Realism to Axiarchism.Brian Cutter - 2023 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 47:73-101.

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References found in this work

The Meta-Problem of Consciousness.David Chalmers - 2018 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 25 (9-10):6-61.
Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem.David Chalmers - 2019 - In William Seager (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. Routledge. pp. 353-373.
New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.

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