Minimal Anti-Humeanism
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (3):447-460 (2017)
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| Abstract |
There is a tension in our theorizing about laws of nature: our practice of using and reasoning with laws of nature suggests that laws are universal generalizations, but if laws are universal generalizations then we face the problem of explanatory circularity. In this paper I elucidate this tension and show how it motivates a view of laws that I call Minimal Anti-Humeanism. This view says that the laws are the universal generalizations that are not grounded in their instances. I argue that this view has a variety of advantages that could make it attractive to people with both Humean and anti-Humean inclinations.
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| Keywords | Laws of Nature Anti-Humeanism Explanation Grounding |
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| DOI | 10.1080/00048402.2016.1241289 |
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References found in this work BETA
New Work for a Theory of Universals.David Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
Grounding and Necessity.Stephan Leuenberger - 2014 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 57 (2):151-174.
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