Laws of Nature, Misc

The way, in which quantum information can unify quantum mechanics (and therefore the standard model) and general relativity, is investigated. Quantum information is defined as the generalization of the concept of information as to the choice among infinite sets of alternatives. Relevantly, the axiom of choice is necessary in general. The unit of quantum information, a qubit is interpreted as a relevant elementary choice among an infinite set of alternatives generalizing that of a bit. The invariance to the axiom of (...) choice shared by quantum mechanics is introduced: It constitutes quantum information as the relation of any state unorderable in principle (e.g. any coherent quantum state before measurement) and the same state already well-ordered (e.g. the well-ordered statistical ensemble of the measurement of the quantum system at issue). This allows of equating the classical and quantum time correspondingly as the well-ordering of any physical quantity or quantities and their coherent superposition. That equating is interpretable as the isomorphism of Minkowski space and Hilbert space. Quantum information is the structure interpretable in both ways and thus underlying their unification. Its deformation is representable correspondingly as gravitation in the deformed pseudo-Riemannian space of general relativity and the entanglement of two or more quantum systems. The standard model studies a single quantum system and thus privileges a single reference frame turning out to be inertial for the generalized symmetry [U(1)]X[SU(2)]X[SU(3)] “gauging” the standard model. As the standard model refers to a single quantum system, it is necessarily linear and thus the corresponding privileged reference frame is necessary inertial. The Higgs mechanism U(1) → [U(1)]X[SU(2)] confirmed enough already experimentally describes exactly the choice of the initial position of a privileged reference frame as the corresponding breaking of the symmetry. The standard model defines ‘mass at rest’ linearly and absolutely, but general relativity non-linearly and relatively. The “Big Bang” hypothesis is additional interpreting that position as that of the “Big Bang”. It serves also in order to reconcile the linear standard model in the singularity of the “Big Bang” with the observed nonlinearity of the further expansion of the universe described very well by general relativity. Quantum information links the standard model and general relativity in another way by mediation of entanglement. The linearity and absoluteness of the former and the nonlinearity and relativeness of the latter can be considered as the relation of a whole and the same whole divided into parts entangled in general. (shrink)

After reconstructing some features of the Scholastic treatment of contingency in natural philosophy, this paper draws a comparison between Descartes’ treatments of the issue of the laws of nature in Le Monde and in the Principles of Philosophy. On the basis of this comparison, it argues that elements of the Scholastic understanding of contingency as due to the impediment provided by matter are still present in the former. While in the Principles Descartes appears to equate contingency with an epistemological limitation (...) in our understanding of the complexity of natural phenomena, in conclusion I argue that some elements of his previous approach to the issue remains in his treatment of curvilinear motion. (shrink)

This paper examines the question of whether certainty can be achieved in sciences, according to the principles of empiricism and tries to identify the reasons why Hume was strangely benighted in the mid-eighteenth century by the Franco-Berlin school. The paper argues that Maupertuis’ reading of the Humean conception of causality in his Philosophical Examination of the Proof the Existence of God Employed in the Essay on Cosmology relies upon his criticism of Hume’s thesis on causality. It also suggests that there (...) is a significant link with Quine’s epistemological distinction between conceptual and doctrinal research. That Hume’s thesis was benighted is even stranger considering that both texts were involved in the dissemination of Newtonianism. In this framework, André Charrak studies the true problem of the certainty of the laws of nature and points out that, for an eighteenth-century empiricist, these laws refer to the theoretical laws of mechanics which also originate in the Principia mathematica. The reference to Buffon and D’Alembert serves to support the author’s fundamental thesis that the concept of applying one science to another has been at the heart of Enlightenment’s epistemological empiricism. Advancing an original point of view, Charrak argues that characterizing empiricism through the promotion of an analytical order indicates the influence of Leibniz. Identifying this influence allows to pinpoint the proper distinction between Franco-Berlin empiricism from Humean empiricism. (shrink)

Antes de começarmos a falar sobre as leis da natureza, creio que vale a pena explicar algumas coisas sobre o título dessa conferência. Nele, digo que farei uma introdução à metafísica das leis da natureza. Uma introdução, em filosofia, consiste da apresentação de um problema filosófico, indicando as razões pelas quais tal problema é um problema, e das principais posições que tentam resolvê-lo, com suas respectivas dificuldades mais aparentes. Uma introdução não deve dar respostas definitivas sobre qual posição devemos aceitar, (...) nem argumentar decisivamente contra ou a favor de uma posição qualquer frente a outras; mas deve fornecer um quadro geral, para que os filósofos que não conhecem o tema possam começar a sua própria investigação. Dessa forma, o que pretendemos fazer aqui é uma introdução. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show how thought experiments help us learn about laws. After providing examples of this kind of nomic illumination in the first section, I canvass explanations of our modal knowledge and opt for an evolutionary account. The basic application is that the laws of nature have led us to develop rough and ready intuitions of physical possibility which are then exploited by thought experimenters to reveal some of the very laws responsible for those intuitions. (...) The good news is that natural selection ensures a degree of reliability for the intuitions. The bad news is that the evolutionary account seems to limit the range of reliable thought experiment to highly practical and concrete contexts. In the fifth section, I provide reasons for thinking that we are not as slavishly limited as a pessimistic construal of natural selection suggests. Nevertheless, I promote the idea that biology is a promising source of predictions and diagnoses of thought experiment failures. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show how thought experiments help us learn about laws. After providing examples of this kind of nomic illumination in the first section, I canvass explanations of our modal knowledge and opt for an evolutionary account. The basic application is that the laws of nature have led us to develop rough and ready intuitions of physical possibility which are then exploited by thought experimenters to reveal some of the very laws responsible for those intuitions. (...) The good news is that natural selection ensures a degree of reliability for the intuitions. The bad news is that the evolutionary account seems to limit the range of reliable thought experiment to highly practical and concrete contexts. In the fifth section, I provide reasons for thinking that we are not as slavishly limited as a pessimistic construal of natural selection suggests. Nevertheless, I promote the idea that biology is a promising source of predictions and diagnoses of thought experiment failures. (shrink)

Quantitative laws are more typical of science than are generalizations involving observational predicates, yet much discussion of scientific inference takes the confirmation of a universal generalization by its instances to be typical and paradigmatic. The important difference is that measurement necessarily involves error. It is argued that because of error laws can no more be refuted by observation than they can be verified by observation. Without much background knowledge, tests of a law mainly provide evidence for the distribution of errors (...) of measurement of the quantities involved. With more background knowledge, the data may contribute either to our knowledge of the error distributions, or to the grounds we have for accepting or rejecting the law. With enough background knowledge, data may verify as well as refute laws. (shrink)

In this paper we offer a response to one argument in favour of Priority Monism, what Jonathan Schaffer calls the nomic argument for monism. We proceed in three stages. We begin by introducing Jonathan Schaffer’s Priority Monism and the nomic argument for that view. We then consider a response to the nomic argument that we presented in an earlier paper. We show that this argument suffers from a flaw. We then go on to offer a different response to the nomic (...) argument. The core idea is that the current laws of physics are not integrated in the manner that Schaffer requires to get the nomic argument for monism off the ground. (shrink)

This paper aims to explain why the laws of nature are held fixed in counterfactual reasoning. I begin by highlighting three salient features of counterfactual reasoning: it is conservative, nomically guided, and it uses hindsight. I then present a rationale for our engagement in counterfactual reasoning that aims to make sense of these features. In particular, I argue that counterfactual reasoning helps us evaluate the evidential relations between unanticipated pieces of evidence and various hypotheses of interest about the history of (...) the actual world. Given this goal, it makes a great deal of sense that counterfactual reasoning would have the aforementioned features. Additionally, it turns out that this account of counterfactual reasoning is nicely congruent with Humean views of laws. Specifically, it can explain, in a Humean-friendly way, both why the laws are counterfactually resilient, and why we may be inclined to have anti-Humean intuitions in the first place, even if some form of Humeanism is correct. (shrink)

My thesis in this paper is: the modern concept of laws of motion—qua dynamical laws—emerges in 18th-century mechanics. The driving factor for it was the need to extend mechanics beyond the centroid theories of the late-1600s. The enabling result behind it was the rise of differential equations. -/- In consequence, by the mid-1700s we see a deep shift in the form and status of laws of motion. The shift is among the critical inflection points where early modern mechanics turns into (...) classical mechanics as we know it. Previously, laws of motion had been channels for truth and reference into mechanics. By 1750, the laws lose these features. Instead, now they just assert equalities between functions; and serve just to entail (differential) equations of motion for particular mechanical setups. This creates two philosophical problems. First, it’s unclear what counts as evidence for the laws of motion in the Enlightenment. Second, it’s a mystery whether these laws retain any notion of causality. That subverts the early-modern dictum that physics is a science of causes. (shrink)

This book deals with an internal theme of metaphysics, which is the metaphysics of the laws of nature. The author presents traditional contemporary theories, as well as his own original theory, and evaluates each one at a time. He also addresses the problem of the modality of the laws of nature and makes some criticism of the standard view of necessity as truth in all possible worlds, and shows an application of his discussion to the metaphysics of physics. / Este (...) livro trata de um tema interno à metafísica, que é a metafísica das leis da natureza. O autor apresenta as teorias tradicionais contemporâneas, tal como também a sua própria teoria original, e avalia cada uma delas por vez. Ele também aborda o problema da modalidade das leis da natureza e apresenta uma certa crítica à visão padrão da necessidade como verdade em todos os mundos possíveis, e mostra uma aplicação da sua discussão à metafísica da Física. (shrink)

Fisikak duen munduaren ulerkera eta askatasuna (edo nork bere burua gobernatzeko gaitasuna) uztartu daitezkeela defendatu nahi du Ismaelek liburuan. Askatasuna ez dago modan, ordea. Fatalismoa da nagusi. Alde handia dago bizi dugun munduaren eta fisikak deskribatzen duenaren artean, eta ohikoa da “Bizi duguna fisikak ilusioa dela erakusten du” eta horrelakoak entzutea. Beste askori, askatasunaren defentsa metafisikoa lekuz kanpokoa irudituko zaio. Horiek, askatasuna orain eta hemen behar dela defendatuko dute. Ez duela inongo zentzurik askatasuna termino horietan pentsatzeak.

Laws of nature concern the natural properties of things. Newton’s law of gravity states that the gravitational force between objects is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance; Coulomb’s law states a similar functional dependency between charged particles. Each of these properties confers a power to act as specified by the function of the laws. Consequently, properties of the same quantity confer resembling powers. Any theory that takes powers seriously must account (...) for their resemblance. This is the challenge set by the paper. The first part is devoted to Armstrong’s view according to which property resemblance reduces to partial identities between categorical properties. I argue that Armstrong’s solution to the challenge involves accepting determinable properties but that these should not be admitted. In the second part, I argue that dispositional essentialism can satisfactorily account for orderings among powers in terms of degrees of overlapping potentialities. (shrink)

The purposes of this paper are: (1) to present four theories of the nature of natural laws, (2) to show that only one of them is capable of adequately answering to Tooley’s Cases, and (3) indicate why these cases are relevant for our ontology. These purposes are important since the concept of “natural law” is used in many (if not all) realms of natural science and in many branches of philosophy; if Tooley’s cases are possible, they represent situations that must (...) be adequately described. If there is only one theory that can adequately describe such cases, there are strong reasons to prefer this theory over the other ones. (shrink)

The scattered and pervasive variability of material objects, being a conspicuous part of the very experience of early-modern and modern science, challenges its purely theoretic character in many ways. Problems of this kind turn out in such different scientific contexts as Galilean physics, chemistry, and physiology. Practical answers are offered on the basis of different approaches, among which, in particular, two can be singled out. One is made out by what is often called an ‘art’ of experiments. From the Renaissance (...) until J. H. Lambert’s writings of the 1750–1760s, we can follow a train of reflections on the art of making experiments that deal precisely with the persistence of contingency in the material objects of pure science. The other is the analysis of contingency in probabilistic terms. They develop subsequently and eventually meet, as it can be seen precisely in Lambert’s work: among the first to pursue this path are Jakob Bernoulli and Leibniz. (shrink)

Some have tried to make miracles compatible with the laws of nature by re-defining them as something other than interventions. By contrast, this article argues that although miracles are divine interventions, they are not violations of the laws of nature. Miracles are also not exceptions to the laws, nor do the laws not apply to them. The laws never have exceptions; they never are violated or suspended, are necessary and unchangeable, and apply also to divine interventions. We need to reconsider (...) not miracles but laws. The main claim of this article is that laws of nature do not entail regularities, and that therefore miracles do not violate the laws. We need a new theory of the laws of nature: the tendency theory. (shrink)

The Humean best systems account identifies laws of nature with the regularities in a system of truths that, as a whole, best conforms to scientific standards for theory-choice. A principled problem for the BSA is that it returns the wrong verdicts about laws in cases where multiple systems, containing different regularities, satisfy these standards equally well. This problem affects every version of the BSA because it arises regardless of which standards for theory-choice Humeans adopt. In this paper, we propose a (...) Humean response to the problem. We invoke pragmatic aspects of Humean laws to show that the BSA, despite violating some of our intuitive judgements, can capture everything that is relevant for scientific practice. (shrink)

I argue physicalism should be characterized as the thesis that all behavior is law-governed. This characterization captures crucial desiderata for a formulation of physicalism, including its broad import and worldview defining features. It also has more local virtues, such as avoiding Hempel’s dilemma. A particularly important implication, I argue, is that this thesis makes the question of the mind’s physicality turn on what the mind can do- rather than what experience is like.

In this paper, we argue that the Consequence Argument relies on empirical premises. In particular, we show how the argument depends upon assumptions about the character of the laws of nature.

SummaryIn his essay on rational theology Holm Tetens broaches the issue of God’s role as creator and additionally addresses the relationship of the absolute to the contingent world in a philosophical perspective. By making this a topic, the question arises as to whether or not God’s creative activities are limited by the laws of nature. According to Tetens, God as the infinite self-conscious subject must not just considered as free from all restrictions concerning his creative activities, but rather, characterized as (...) the absolute, he must be thought of as the ultimate ground of all beings, and therefore also as the creator of natural laws. In this article I will give a brief sketch of how this task could be tackled in philosophical terms. In doing so I will both pick up some of Tetens’ main intentions and concepts and try to explore them in some detail, as well as attempt to link them with the principle of determinacy as the main characteristic of the absolute. (shrink)

The philosopher Roberto Unger and the physicist Lee Smolin have recently argued that the current explanatory framework of cosmology, which presumes a timeless background of unchanging physical laws, should be replaced by a thoroughly relational framework in which time is fundamental and all laws are subject to change. Within this alternative framework, however, Unger and Smolin find themselves confronted by a dilemma: either the laws of nature evolve according to some higher set of “meta-laws,” which reinstates a timeless background at (...) a higher level, or the laws of nature evolve randomly and the path of inquiry is blocked. In response to this dilemma, the authors propose a theory of causal events as singular, freely chosen, and self-determined optimalities constrained only by their intrinsic relations to all other events. (shrink)

:This paper traces the early reflections of the pre-Critical Kant on laws of nature back to Newton’s governing conception of laws. Three problems with the Newtonian conception are identified. I argue that in the attempt to provide a solution to them, in 1763 Kant came to forge a novel governing conception of laws. Key to Kant’s novel view are the notions of ground and its determinations. The role of these two notions in delivering the nomological necessity, explanatory power, and unity (...) of the laws of nature is discussed and analysed. (shrink)

This remarkably lucid and original book presents a powerful case for the rationality of induction, a defense beginning with a “nomological-explanatory solution” and concluding with a “theological-explanatory solution.” Foster’s arguments range from his opening defense of the rationality of the methods of inductive and inferential reasoning, that is, the reasoning at the foundation of modern scientific discoveries about the natural world, to his conclusion linking the existence of universal and necessary laws of nature to the existence of a personal creator (...) God as the ultimate source of those laws. (shrink)

One might view the literature on laws of nature as dividing into two camps: the “metaphysical” advocates of laws as objective realities beyond any actual regularities, and the “antimetaphysical” skeptics. Hard-liners in both camps will find much to disagree with in Marc Lange’s Natural Laws in Scientific Practice. I mean that as a compliment to Lange’s work.

In the ‘Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic’ of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant contends that the idea of God has a positive regulative role in the systematization of empirical knowledge. But why is this regulative role assigned to this specific idea? Kant’s account is rather opaque and this question has also not received much attention in the literature. In this paper I argue that an adequate understanding of the regulative role of the idea of God depends on the specific (...) metaphysical content Kant attributes to it in the Critique and other writings. I show that neither a heuristic principle of conceptual systematicity, nor conceiving God as a hypothesis of an intelligent designer, can satisfy the demands of reason to make the unity and necessity of the laws of nature intelligible. Regarding the positive account about the metaphysical content of the idea of God, I support my argument by referring to Kant’s pre-critical discussion of the usefulness of the conception of God for the project of science, and by expounding Kant’s critical account of the necessity of the laws of nature. Thus my account sheds light on the continuity of Kant’s conception of God and his appropriation of his own rationalistic metaphysics. (shrink)

This article presents a critical analysis of two influential readings of Kant’s Second Analogy, namely, Gerd Buchdahl’s “modest reading” and Michael Friedman’s “strong reading.” After pointing out the textual and philosophical problems with each, I advance an alternative reading of the Second Analogy argument. On my reading, the Second Analogy argument proves the existence of necessary and strictly universal causal laws. This, however, does not guarantee that Kant has a solution for the problem of induction. After I explain why the (...) empirical lawfulness of nature does not guarantee the empirical uniformity of nature, I examine the modal status of empirical laws in Kant and argue contra Buchdahl and Friedman that empirical laws express two different kinds of necessity that are not reducible to each other. -/- . (shrink)

SummaryScientists regard their inductive hypotheses as confirmed when consistence exists between two or more results obtained by differing methods. Three hierarchical levels of confirmation are applied. Certainty is obtained by the deductive element of the third level. The question of uniformity o i nature is less decisive than the question whether or not the complexity of the processes observed or the limited scope of our senses and instruments permits to see through the causal connections involved.

The goal of this paper is to sketch an empiricist metaphysics of laws of nature. The key idea is that there are regularities without regularity-enforcers. Differently put, there are natural laws without law-makers _of a distinct metaphysical kind_. This sketch will rely on the concept of a natural pattern and more significantly on the existence of a network of natural patterns in nature. The relation between a regularity and a pattern will be analysed in terms of mereology. Here is the (...) road map. In section 2, I will briefly discuss the relation between empiricism and metaphysics, aiming to show that an empiricist metaphysics is possible. In section 3, I will offer arguments against stronger metaphysical views of laws. Then, in section 4 I will motivate nomic objectivism. In section 5, I will address the question ‘what is a regularity?’ and will develop a novel answer to it, based on the notion of a natural pattern. In section 6, I will raise the question: ‘what is a law of nature?’, the answer to which will be: a law of nature is a regularity that is characterised by the unity of a _natural_ pattern. (shrink)

This article aims to defend Locke against Quine’s charge, made in his famous “two dogmas” paper, that Locke’s theory of knowledge is badly flawed, not only for assuming the dogmas, but also for adopting an “in-tolerably restrictive” version of the dogma of reductionism. It is shown here that, in his analysis of the epistemological status of scientific laws, Locke has effectively transcended the narrow idea-empiricism which un-derlies this version of reductionism. First, in order to escape idealism, he introduced the notion (...) of “sensitive knowledge of the particular existence of finite beings without us,” broadening thus his initial definition of knowledge in terms of the “perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas” — a definition compatible with Quine’s interpretation. Sec-ondly, after showing that we can have virtually no a priori knowledge of universal truths about substances, Locke extended the notion of “sensi-tive knowledge” to the particular propositions of “coexistence” in sub-stances, appealing to the notion of “probability” for treating their induc-tive generalizations and, in particular, the phenomenological laws of sci-ence. Finally, acknowledging the essential presence of hypothetical, non-phenomenological laws in science, he anticipated much of the contempo-rary views on their role and nature, including, remarkably, a mild ver-sion of the epistemological holism championed by Quine. (shrink)

Ist der Unterschied zwischen wissenschaftlichen Gesetzen und Theorien ein qualitativer oder lediglich von quantitativer Art? Der Autor versucht zu zeigen, daß Gesetze und Theorien fundamental verschieden sind und daß die Kenntnis ihrer verschiedenen Natur notwendig für ein richtiges Wissenschaftsverständnis ist. Aus seiner Sicht sind Theorien geistige Konstruktionen mit dem Ziel, kausale Erklärungen von empirischen Gesetzen zu geben, während diese Gesetze auf der Grundlage von Messungen entdeckt werden und die Tatsachen der Wissenschaft konstituieren. Erkenntnistheoretisch sind daher Theorien und Gesetze auf verschiedenen (...) Ebenen anzusiedeln: während Gesetze Wissen liefern, liefern Theorien Verstehen. Der Kern der Theorien besteht aus Modellen, die idealisierte Abstraktionen aus Zustandsarten darstellen. Theoretische Modelle konstituieren Ontologien, die kausale Mechanismen aufzeigen. Solche Ontologien betreffen den Bedeutungsaspekt des Gegenstandsbereichs, auf den die Theorie angewendet wird, während empirische Gesetze den Ausdrucksaspekt des gleichen Gegenstandsbereichs betreffen. Theorien erklären Gesetze, indem sie zeigen, wie der Ausdrucksaspekt lediglich der natürliche Ausdruck der Auswirkungen der Kausalmechanismen in Bedeutungsaspekt sind. (shrink)

Four propositions relative to the laws of nature in the classical period must be noted. 1. Certain regularities in phenomena had been discovered. 2. A concept of law had emerged. 3. Classical science is characterized by the introduction of the notion of the legality of nature. 4. New uses of the word «law» had appeared in scientific texts. This article is devoted to the analysis of only this last proposition, that is to say to a terminological problem. First we will (...) describe the semantic uses of the word «law» that may have contributed to the constitution of its classical meaning: its specific usage, disciplinary usage, usage in physics, in mathematics, in metaphysics. Second we will analyze the various moments of the diffusion of the word in the sciences in the xviith century. The general thesis defended in the end is that if the term «law» had indeed been used in science with no reference to a law-giving God prior to the xviith century, only this reference, that is, the coming together of its physical and its metaphysical usage, allowed its generalization in the period between the xviith and xviiith centuries. (shrink)

If physics is a science that unveils the fundamental laws of nature, then the appearance of mathematical concepts in its language can be surprising or even mysterious. This was Eugene Wigner’s argument in 1960. I show that another approach to physical theory accommodates mathematics in a perfectly reasonable way. To explore unknown processes or phenomena, one builds a theory from fundamental principles, employing them as constraints within a general mathematical framework. The rise of such theories of the unknown, which I (...) call blackbox models, drives home the unsurprising effectiveness of mathematics. I illustrate it on the examples of Einstein’s principle theories, the S-matrix approach in quantum field theory, effective field theories, and device-independent approaches in quantum information. (shrink)

This volume showcases the best of recent research in the philosophy of science. A compilation of papers presented at the EPSA 13, it explores a broad distribution of topics such as causation, truthlikeness, scientific representation, gender-specific medicine, laws of nature, science funding and the wisdom of crowds. Papers are organised into headings which form the structure of the book. Readers will find that it covers several major fields within the philosophy of science, from general philosophy of science to the more (...) specific philosophy of physics, philosophy of chemistry, philosophy of the life sciences, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of the social sciences and humanities, amongst others. This volume provides an excellent overview of the state of the art in the philosophy of science, as practiced in different European countries and beyond. ​It will appeal to researchers with an interest in the philosophical underpinnings of their own discipline, and to philosophers who wish to explore the latest work on the themes explored. (shrink)

Metaphysics of Science is the philosophical study of key concepts that figure prominently in science and that, prima facie, stand in need of clarification. It is also concerned with the phenomena that correspond to these concepts. Exemplary topics within Metaphysics of Science include laws of nature, causation, dispositions, natural kinds, possibility and necessity, explanation, reduction, emergence, grounding, and space and time. -/- Metaphysics of Science is a subfield of both metaphysics and the philosophy of science—that is, it can be allocated (...) to either, but it exhausts neither. Unlike metaphysics simpliciter, Metaphysics of Science is not primarily concerned with metaphysical questions that may already arise from everyday phenomena such as what makes a thing (a chair, a desk) the very thing it is, what its identity criteria are, out of which parts is it composed, whether it remains the same if we exchange a couple of its parts, and so forth. Nor is it concerned with the concrete entities (superstrings, molecules, genes, and so forth) postulated by specific sciences; these issues are the subject matter of the special philosophies of science (for example, of physics, of chemistry, of biology). -/- Metaphysics of Science is concerned with more abstract and general concepts that inform all of these sciences. Many of these concepts are interwoven with each other. For example, metaphysicians of science inquire whether dispositionality, lawhood, and causation can be accounted for in nonmodal terms; whether laws of nature presuppose the existence of natural kinds; and whether the properties of macrolevel objects supervene on dispositional or nondispositional properties. -/- This article surveys the scope (section 1), historical origin (section 2), exemplary subject matters (section 4), and methodology (section 5) of Metaphysics of Science, as well as the motivation that drives it (section 3). (shrink)