According to the Nomological Argument, observed regularities in nature are best explained by an appeal to a supernatural being. A successful explanation must avoid two perils. Some explanations provide too little structure, predicting a universe without regularities. Others provide too much structure, thereby precluding an explanation of certain types of lawlike regularities featured in modern scientific theories. We argue that an explanation based in the creative, intentional action of a supernatural being avoids these two perils whereas leading competitors do not. (...) Although our argument falls short of a full defense, it does suggest that the Nomological Argument is worthy of philosophical attention. (shrink)

The article introduces and defends the Nomological Account of ground, a reductive account of the notion of metaphysical explanation in terms of the laws of metaphysics. The paper presents three desiderata that a theory of ground should meet: it should explain the modal force of ground, the generality of ground, and the interplay between ground and certain mereological notions. The bulk of the paper develops the Nomological Account and argues that it meets the three desiderata. The Nomological Account relies on (...) two central notions: the notion of a ‘law of metaphysics’ and the notion of ‘determination via the laws’. The paper offers the constructional conception of the laws of metaphysics, on which the metaphysical laws are general principles that characterize construction–operations such as composition, constitution, or set-formation. The role of determination in the account is explained and some reductive approaches to the notion are sketched. The case for the Nomological Account presented in this article is also a case for the laws of metaphysics. Since the Nomological Account offers a promising approach to metaphysical explanation we should take the laws of metaphysics seriously. (shrink)

The discussion on mathematical explanation has inherited the same sense of dissatisfaction that philosophers of science expressed, in the context of scientific explanation, towards the deductive-nomological model. This model is regarded as unable to cover cases of bona fide mathematical explanations and, furthermore, it is largely ignored in the relevant literature. Surprisingly, the reasons for this ostracism are not sufficiently manifest. In this paper I explore a possible extension of the model to the case of mathematical explanations and I claim (...) that there are at least two reasons to judge the deductive-nomological picture of explanation as inadequate in that context. (shrink)

Some of the concerns which motivate attempts to provide a philosophical reduction of nomological necessity are briefly introduced in I. In II, Hempel's treatment of the paradoxes is contrasted with a position which holds that nomological necessity is a pragmatic dimension of laws of nature, and that this pragmatic dimension is of such a type that it prevents laws of nature from contraposing. Such a position is, however, untenable unless (i) the sense of 'pragmatics' at issue is specified, and the (...) possibility of pragmatic differences resulting in differences in confirmation is defended, and (ii) a relevant pragmatic difference between contrapositives is indicated. III attempts to satisfy condition (i) by developing a new sense of pure pragmatics and argues that some remarks by Goodman and Scheffler together with work on the logic of explanation by Dr. Rescher and myself suggest that nomological contrapositives are not pragmatically equivalent (i.e. substitutable salva veritate in the pure pragmatics of an ideal scientific language). If such is the case, condition (ii) is also satisfied. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe paper examines the relevance of the nomological view of nature to three discussions of tide in the thirteenth century. A nomological conception of nature assumes that the basic explanatory units of natural phenomena are universally binding rules stated in quantitative terms. Robert Grosseteste introduced an account of the tide based on the mechanism of rarefaction and condensation, stimulated by the Moon's rays and their angle of incidence. He considered the Moon's action over the sea an example of the general (...) efficient causality exerted through the universal activity of light or species. Albert the Great posited a plurality of causes which cannot be reduced to a single cause. The connaturality of the Moon and the water is the only principle of explanation which he considered universal. Connaturality, however, renders neither formulation nor quantification possible. While Albert stressed the variety of causes of the tide, Roger Bacon emphasized regularity and reduced the various causes producing tides into forces. He replaced the terminology of ‘natures’ by one of ‘forces’. Force, which in principle can be accurately described and measured, thus becomes a commensurable aspect of a diverse cosmos. When they reasoned why waters return to their place after the tide, Grosseteste argued that waters return in order to prevent a vacuum, Albert claimed that waters ‘follow their own nature’, while Bacon held that the ‘proper force’ of the water prevails over the distant force of the first heaven. I exhibit, for the thirteenth century, moments of the move away from the Aristotelian concerns. The basic elements of these concerns were essences and natures which reflect specific phenomena and did not allow for an image of nature as a unified system. In the new perspective of the thirteenth century the key was a causal link between the position of the Moon and the tide cycle, a link which is universal and still qualitative, yet expressed as susceptible to quantification. (shrink)

Measurement is said to be the basis of exact sciences as the process of assigning numbers to matter (things or their attributes), thus making it possible to apply the mathematically formulated laws of nature to the empirical world. Mathematics and empiria are best accorded to each other in laboratory experiments which function as what Nancy Cartwright calls nomological machine: an arrangement generating (mathematical) regularities. On the basis of accounts of measurement errors and uncertainties, I will argue for two claims: 1) (...) Both fundamental laws of physics, corresponding to ideal nomological machine, and phenomenological laws, corresponding to material nomological machine, lie, being highly idealised relative to the empirical reality; and also laboratory measurement data do not describe properties inherent to the world independently of human understanding of it. 2) Therefore the naive, representational view of measurement and experimentation should be replaced with a more pragmatic or practice-based view. (shrink)

It has been the dominant view that probabilistic explanations of particular facts must be inductive in character. I argue here that this view is mistaken, and that the aim of probabilistic explanation is not to demonstrate that the explanandum fact was nomically expectable, but to give an account of the chance mechanism(s) responsible for it. To this end, a deductive-nomological model of probabilistic explanation is developed and defended. Such a model has application only when the probabilities occurring in covering laws (...) can be interpreted as measures of objective chance, expressing the strength of physical propensities. Unlike inductive models of probabilistic explanation, this deductive model stands in no need of troublesome requirements of maximal specificity or epistemic relativization. (shrink)

Nomological dispositionalism has occupied a center stage in contemporary metaphysics about laws, holding the view that laws of nature derive from an ontology of intrinsically modal dispositional properties. This view faces, though, various challenges, some of which are worth revisiting. Among them, dispositionalism about properties condemns laws to ontological redundancy; its reconstruction of properties does not seem to fit with experimentalism; it introduces a view of metaphysical modality that ambiguously moves between (_de dicto_) logical modality and (_de re_) physical modality; (...) and it assumes fundamentalist meta-metaphysical presuppositions. Rather than dismantling nomological dispositionalism –quite the contrary, we believe it is a valuable theory–, we aim at identifying those nodes where alternative strategies could be followed in a theory of laws. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Since causal processes can be prevented and interfered with, law-governed causation is a challenge for necessitarian theories of laws of nature. To show that there is a problematic friction between necessity and interference, I focus on David Armstrong's theory; with one proviso, his lawmaker, nomological necessity, is supposed to be instantiated as the causation of the law's second relatum whenever its first relatum is instantiated. His proviso is supposed to handle interference cases, but fails to do so. In order to (...) be able to handle interferences, any theory which utilizes a kind of necessitation as lawmaker has to downgrade what it treats as necessity to something more akin to (Newtonian) forces. (shrink)

Para el realismo nomológico, la mejor explicación del mundo afirma la existencia de leyes naturales que lo fundamentan. Si el estatuto de estas es controvertido, sus partidarios coinciden en que implican una adición de ser con respecto a las regularidades de Hume. Se busca mostrar cómo el argumento nomológico, que todos ellos utilizan de alguna forma, se asemeja en su estructura a diversos argumentos teístas, como el de la quinta vía de Tomás de Aquino. Ante el carácter no conclusivo del (...) argumento, se sostiene que la adopción de un realismo nomológico proviene de una mera preferencia subjetiva. According to nomological realism, the best explanation of the world is one that appeals to the existence of natural laws which ground it. Althought there are controversies regarding the status of such laws, those who defend this position agree they involve a plus of being regarding Hume's regularities. In this paper we show how the nomological argument, which they all use somehow, has a structural similarity with various theistic arguments such as Thomas Aquina's fifth way. Finally, in the absence of conclusiveness of the argument, we hold that the adoption of a nomological realism comes from a mere subjective preference. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEmotion understanding, which can broadly be defined as expertise in the meaning of emotion, is a core component of emotional intelligence and facilitates better intra- and interpersonal outcomes. However, to date only very few standard tests to measure emotion understanding in healthy adults exist. Here, we present two new performance-based tests that were developed and are scored based on componential emotion theory and large-scale cross-cultural empirical findings. These instruments intend to measure facets of emotion understanding that are not included in (...) existing tests. The first test measures the ability to understand and label emotional experiences of a target person from a description of emotion features covering five emotion components embedded in a written vignette. The second test measures semantic knowledge about which features from each component a... (shrink)

Three theses about the mind, when conjoined with a certain understanding of lawlike connection, escape the objection that they constitute an epiphenomenalism and so conflict with our conviction of the efficacy of the mental. Certain alternatives to the given picture of the mind, one of them an Identity Theory, are in various respects less defensible. The given picture can be defended against considerations deriving from a contextual conception of the mental, and from an elaborated objection having to do with the (...) holism of the mental. The Identity Theory mentioned above appears to be inconsistent, and a further picture of the mind, with very different presuppositions, has the disability among others that it does not provide for mental efficacy. Also, the presuppositions raise great problems. (shrink)

It has become a standard view in the philosophy of science scholarship (e.g., van Fraassen [1989]) that debates on the problem of laws of nature and/or scientific laws employ pre-Kantian approaches to the subject in question. But what exactly a Kantian approach might look like and, above all, what Kant endorses on this matter are not entirely settled issues. In particular, this regards Kant’s argument on the problem of ’necessity grounding’ with respect to different types of the so-called “empirical laws (...) of nature” (empirische Naturgesetze) in the third Critique. In order to assess the aforementioned problem, in this paper I will address the following questions:1) What is Kant’s main nomological criterion or a combination of criteria, that is, the criterion/criteria according to which we can explicate the distinction between laws of nature and accidentally true statements?2) What exactly is the role of an apriori law of nature, such as the one instantiated by the Second Analogy of Experience, in considering nature as a lawful existence of objects?3) On what grounds can a statement describing a particular causal regularity, for example, the statement “the sun warms the stone” (Prolegomena, N 301), be viewed as an empirical law of nature?4) Is Kant’s systematicity a nomological criterion in the strict and standard sense or, rather, is it a certain kind of transcendental criterion, which not only makes the whole of Kant’s nomological machinery up and running, but also has decisive influence on the final arrangement of nomological criteria? (shrink)

It has become a standard view in the philosophy of science scholarship (e.g., van Fraassen [1989]) that debates on the problem of laws of nature and/or scientific laws employ pre-Kantian approaches to the subject in question. But what exactly a Kantian approach might look like and, above all, what Kant endorses on this matter are not entirely settled issues. In particular, this regards Kant’s argument on the problem of ’necessity grounding’ with respect to different types of the so-called “empirical laws (...) of nature” (empirische Naturgesetze) in the third Critique. In order to assess the aforementioned problem, in this paper I will address the following questions:1) What is Kant’s main nomological criterion or a combination of criteria, that is, the criterion/criteria according to which we can explicate the distinction between laws of nature and accidentally true statements?2) What exactly is the role of an apriori law of nature, such as the one instantiated by the Second Analogy of Experience, in considering nature as a lawful existence of objects?3) On what grounds can a statement describing a particular causal regularity, for example, the statement “the sun warms the stone” (Prolegomena, N 301), be viewed as an empirical law of nature?4) Is Kant’s systematicity a nomological criterion in the strict and standard sense or, rather, is it a certain kind of transcendental criterion, which not only makes the whole of Kant’s nomological machinery up and running, but also has decisive influence on the final arrangement of nomological criteria? (shrink)

The paper explores a deductive-nomological account of metaphysical explanation: some truths metaphysically explain, or ground, another truth just in case the laws of metaphysics determine the latter truth on the basis of the former. I develop and motivate a specific conception of metaphysical laws, on which they are general rules that regulate the existence and features of derivative entities. I propose an analysis of the notion of ‘determination via the laws’, based on a restricted form of logical entailment. I argue (...) that the DN-account of ground can be defended against the well-known objections to the DN-approach to scientific explanation. The goal of the paper is to show that the DN-account of metaphysical explanation is a well-motivated and defensible theory. (shrink)

In medical diagnostic examination three main stages may be distinguished: (a) initial exploration, (b) hypothesis-directed investigation, and (c) final diagnosis making. The purpose of this work is to study some methodological problems concerning the second of the above stages of the diagnosis and to prepare a background for a mathematical model [30] of this process.In diagnostic problem solving, the reasoning proceeds along the main lines traced by some initial suggestions and passes through various intermediate elements which are connected with one (...) another forming ramifying chains and nets of inferences and hypotheses. Such a complex mental construction is based on laws which form medical knowledge and reflect various regularities and relations, causal, structural, functional, and others. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to further our understanding of mechanisms conceived of as ontologically separable from laws. What opportunities are there for a mechanistic perspective to be independent of, or even more fundamental than, a law perspective?

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)

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)

In the present paper some formal aspects of the hypothesis-directed stage of medical diagnosis are studied and an algorithm of the diagnostic problem solving process is described. A given field of medical knowledge is represented by a pair of graphs. The sentences describing observed symptoms and signs constitute the data on which the algorithm is based. In the first step, the set of true judgments is determined and the hypotheses which are impossible in a given situation are rejected. In consequence (...) the model of knowledge is modified and working hypotheses are chosen. Further steps consist in selection of hypotheses in view of testing. The set of expected symptoms is determined and these are classified according to their diagnostic value. The process ends when the conditions of arriving at a useful solution of a given problem are fulfilled. The description of the algorithm is based on a clinical example. The model aims at reflecting some of the most important structural features of the diagnosis and does not embrace the probability evaluation problems. (shrink)

The zombie, mocking all nomological arguments, gives rise to axiological considerations that also result in a vindication of the nomological paradigm. So the ‘philosophical benefit of zombies’ ultimately proves to be that they lead to an understanding they were originally invented to refute.

We revive the idea that a deductive-nomological explanation of a scientific theory by its successor may be defensible, even in those common and troublesome cases where the theories concerned are mutually incompatible; and limiting, approximating and counterfactual assumptions may be required in order to define a logical relation between them. Our solution is based on a general characterization of limiting relations between physical theories using the method of nonstandard analysis.

Developing and motivating the notion of supervenience. Investigating the relationship to reducibility and definability (equivalence, under certain conditions), and to microphysical determination.

I propose a deductive-nomological model for mathematical scientific explanation. In this regard, I modify Hempel’s deductive-nomological model and test it against some of the following recent paradigmatic examples of the mathematical explanation of empirical facts: the seven bridges of Königsberg, the North American synchronized cicadas, and Hénon-Heiles Hamiltonian systems. I argue that mathematical scientific explanations that invoke laws of nature are qualitative explanations, and ordinary scientific explanations that employ mathematics are quantitative explanations. I analyse the repercussions of this deductivenomological model (...) on causal explanations. (shrink)

Dispositional essentialism, a plausible view about the natures of (sparse or natural) properties, yields a satisfying explanation of the nature of laws also. The resulting necessitarian conception of laws comes in a weaker version, which allows differences between possible worlds as regards which laws hold in those worlds and a stronger version that does not. The main aim of this paper is to articulate what is involved in accepting the stronger version, most especially the consequence that all possible properties exist (...) in all worlds. I also suggest that there is no particularly strong reason for preferring the weaker to the stronger version. For example, Armstrong's instantiation condition on universals entails that according to strong necessitarianism every property is instantiated in all possible worlds. But first we do not need to accept Armstrong's instantiation condition, in part because his arguments for it are forceful only for a contingentist about laws and properties. Secondly, even if we do accept the condition, the consequence that all properties are instantiated is not itself contradictory, so long as any form of necessitarianism holds. Strong necessitarianism is prima facie counter-intuitive. But for that matter so is weak necessitarianism. Accepting either weak or strong necessitarianism requires denying the force of intuition in this area. And indeed we have every reason to deny the force of intuition and its primary source, imagination, concerning modal facts. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate, within the framework of realistic interpretations of the wave function in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, the mathematical and physical nature of the wave function. I argue against the view that mathematically the wave function is a two-component scalar field on configuration space. First, I review how this view makes quantum mechanics non- Galilei invariant and yields the wrong classical limit. Moreover, I argue that interpreting the wave function as a ray, in agreement many physicists, Galilei invariance (...) is preserved. In addition, I discuss how the wave function behaves more similarly to a gauge potential than to a field. Finally I show how this favors a nomological rather than an ontological view of the wave function. (shrink)

The article discusses the position of the Australian philosopher David Armstrong on the problem of the ontological status of the laws of nature. Through a clarification of Armstrong’s understanding of naturalism, physicalism, and factualism, the general essence of his metaphysical project is summarized. Then article presents his theory of the laws of nature, which is a kind of nomological realism: his version of the nomolog­ical argument is examined; his general grounds for rejecting the regularity theories, which is classical for the (...) naturalistic approach, are clarified; and the role of abduction in Arm­strong’s theory is demonstrated. The relation of nomic necessity, which is the key concept of his theory, is discussed in detail: its status as a second-order universal is explained; the terms of this relation, namely the types of states of affairs that constitute some special kind of universals, are distinguished; the essence of the nomic connection assumed by this relation is clarified through Armstrong’s theory of causality. Armstrong’s critique of regularity theories of laws of nature and the advantages of his nomological realism over them are discussed: cases where regularity is not law are considered; cases where there are laws that are not related to regularities, and cases where law and regularity seem to coincide, but there is reason to believe that they are different, these are the cases that appear to be most important. Finally, drawing on his own argumentation, the advan­tages of Armstrong’s theory over the best systems approach are justified: the problem of subjectivism and the threat of anti-realism inherent in coherentist approaches are ex­amined; the highly counterintuitive dependence of the existence of some laws on the ex­istence of others is pointed out; and the danger of actual contradictions within our ontol­ogy is demonstrated. (shrink)

We argue that it is a mistake to approach goodman's new riddle of induction by demarcating projectible from non-Projectible predicates and hypotheses, And put forward an alternative way of looking at the whole question.

String Theory is the result of the conjunction of three conceptually independent elements: the metaphysical idea of a nomological unity of the forces, the model-theoretical paradigm of Quantum Field Theory, and the conflict resulting from classical gravity in a quantum world - the motivational starting point of the search for a theory of Quantum Gravity. String Theory is sometimes assumed to solve this conflict: by means of an application of the model-theoretical apparatus of Quantum Field Theory, interpreting gravity as the (...) result of an exchange of gravitons, taken here to be dynamical states of the string. But, String Theory does not really solve the conflict. Rather it exemplifies the inadequacy of the apparatus of Quantum Field Theory in the context of Quantum Gravity: After several decades of development it still exists only in an essentially perturbative formulation. And, due to its quantum field theoretical heritage, it is conceptually incompatible with central implications of General Relativity, especially those resulting from the general relativistic relation between gravity and spacetime. All known formulations of String Theory are background-dependent. And no physical motivation is given for this conceptual incompatibility. On the other hand, although String Theory identifies all gauge bosons as string states, it was not even possible to reproduce the Standard Model. Instead, String Theory led to a multitude of internal problems - and to the plethora of low-energy scenarios with different nomologies and symmetries, known as the String Landscape. All attempts to find a dynamically motivated selection principle remained without success, leaving String Theory without any predictive power. The nomological unification of the fundamental forces, including gravity, is only achieved in a purely formal way within the model-theoretical paradigm of Quantum Field Theory - by means of physically unmotivated epicycles like higher dimensionality, Calabi-Yau spaces, branes, etc. Finally, the possibility remains that some of the central assumptions of String Theory are physically wrong. On the one hand, the idea of a nomological unity of the forces could be simply wrong. On the other hand, even if a nomological unity of all fundamental forces should be realized in nature, the possibility remains that gravity is not a fundamental force, but a residual, emergent and possibly intrinsically classical phenomenon, resulting from a quantum substrate without any gravitational degrees of freedom. (shrink)