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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| Reprint years | 2017 |
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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.
Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.Gideon Rosen - 2010 - In Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology. Oxford University Press. pp. 109-36.
View all 35 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Debunking Logical Ground: Distinguishing Metaphysics From Semantics.Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2020 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 6 (2):156-170.
The Governance of Laws of Nature: Guidance and Production.Tobias Wilsch - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies:1-25.
Ideal Laws, Counterfactual Preservation, and the Analyses of Lawhood.Peter Tan - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy:1-16.
The oldest solution to the circularity problem for Humeanism about the laws of nature.David Mark Kovacs - 2020 - Synthese:1-21.
View all 6 citations / Add more citations
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