Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (2):227 – 241 (2004)
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Scientific essentialism aims to account for the natural laws' special capacity to support counterfactuals. I argue that scientific essentialism can do so only by resorting to devices that are just as ad hoc as those that essentialists accuse Humean regularity theories of employing. I conclude by offering an account of the laws' distinctive relation to counterfactuals that portrays laws as contingent but nevertheless distinct from accidents by virtue of possessing a genuine variety of necessity.
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DOI | 10.1080/713659835 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism.Brian David Ellis - 2002 - Mcgill-Queen's University Press.
» The Nature of Natural Laws «.Chris Swoyer - 1982 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 60 (3):1982.
Philosophy and Our Mental Life.Hilary Putnam - 1975 - In Mind, Language, and Reality. Cambridge University Press.
View all 17 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Inference to the Best Explanation.Peter Lipton - 2004 - In Martin Curd & Stathis Psillos (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science. Routledge. pp. 193.
Procedural Semantics for Hyperintensional Logic: Foundations and Applications of Transparent Intensional Logic.Marie Duží, Bjorn Jespersen & Pavel Materna - 2010 - Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer.
Counterfactuals and the Analysis of Necessity.Boris Kment - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):237–302.
How Can Instantaneous Velocity Fulfill its Causal Role?Marc Lange - 2005 - Philosophical Review 114 (4):433-468.
Laws: An Invariance-Based Account.James Woodward - 2018 - In Ott & Patton (eds.), Laws of Nature. Oxford University Press.
View all 22 citations / Add more citations
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