Laws, the Inference Problem, and Uninstantiated Universals (original) (raw)
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Natural Laws, Modality, and Universals
This work discusses the relevance of transcendent universals for different non-Humean theories on natural laws. These theories are: (i) theories that consider natural laws to be either ontologically dependent on primitive counterfactual facts, or theories that consider natural laws as themselves ontologically primitive; and (ii) theories that consider natural laws to be dependent on universals. In both cases (i) and (ii), laws are supposed to have a specific modal character. It is contended that in case (i) this modal character requires a connection with complexions of universals, as modal facts require universals (or so it is maintained). Thus it is more plausible to think of laws as dependent on universals, as in theories of type (ii). In theories of type (ii), furthermore, modal facts seem to require the acceptance of non-instantiated universals. In effect, the existence of a law implies the existence of the universals that are connected within it. As laws seem to exist in possible worlds where the universals that appear therein are not instantiated, non-instantiated universals seem to exist.
The ultimate argument against Armstrong's contingent necessitation view of laws
Analysis, 2005
I show that Armstrong's view of laws as second-order contingent relations of 'necessitation' among categorical properties faces a dilemma. The necessitation relation confers a relation of extensional inclusion ('constant conjunction') on its relata. It does so either necessarily or contingently. If necessarily, it is not a categorical relation (in the relevant sense). If contingently, then an explanation is required of how it confers extensional inclusion. That explanation will need to appeal to a third-order relation between necessitation and extensional inclusion. The same dilemma reappears at this level. Either Armstrong must concede that some properties are not categorical but have essential powers -or he is faced with a regress.
Sometimes The World is Not Enough: The Pursuit of Explanatory Laws in a Humean World
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2003
A novel motivation for a Humean projectivist construal of our concept of scientific law is provided. The analysis is partially developed and used to explain intuitions that are problematic for a Humean reductionist construal of lawhood. A possible non-Humean rejoinder is discussed and rejected. In an appendix, further intuitions that are problematic for Humean reductionists are explained projectively.
Laws and Universality, Laws and History
2010
The article begins by examining two arguments used by Derrida in work published in 1967. The first claims against Lévi-Strauss that an empirical pattern of events cannot be injected into or superimposed onto an historical pattern claiming universality, for then there can be no disconfirmation of what is said. (This argument is used against Marxian history by some who write in the wake of Existentialism, Paul Roubiczek for instance.) The second claims against Foucault that he does not distinguish between reason as part of thinking and language and reason as an empirical historical structure capable of modification along time. The article then discusses the use of very similar if not identical arguments in Derrida’s much more recent work on laws, Force of law. The intelligibility, the interpretability, of laws and their history comes after the laws, not before, and is thus not fully universalisable.
On the Contingency of Universalism
Erkenntnis, 2021
The paper presents different arguments against the necessity of mereological universalism. First, it argues that they are examples of a much more general argumentative structure. It then contends that some of these arguments cannot be resisted by distinguishing different variants of universalism that have been recently proposed in the literature—in contrast with recent suggestions to the contrary. Finally, it provides different ways to resist such contingentist arguments on behalf of universalists.
What are ceteris paribus (cp) laws? Which disciplines appeal to cp laws and which semantics, metaphysical underpinning, and epistemological dimensions do cp law statements have? Firstly, we give a short overview of the recent discussion on cp laws, which addresses these questions. Secondly, we suggest that given the rich and diverse literature on cp laws a broad conception of cp laws should be endorsed which takes into account the different ways in which laws can be non-universal (by being ‘‘non-strict’’, ‘‘inexact’’, ‘‘exception-ridden’’, ‘‘idealized’’ and so forth). Finally, we provide an overview of the special issue on that basis and describe the individual contributions to the special issue according to the issues they address: (a) the range of applications of cp laws as well as the (b) semantics, (c) metaphysics, and (d) epistemology per- taining to cp law statements.
Are non-accidental regularities a cosmic coincidence? Revisiting a central threat to Humean laws
Synthese, 2019
If the laws of nature are as the Humean believes, it is an unexplained cosmic coincidence that the actual Humean mosaic is as extremely regular as it is. This is a strong and well-known objection to the Humean account of laws. Yet, as reasonable as this objection may seem, it is nowadays sometimes dismissed. The reason: its unjustified implicit assignment of equiprobability to each possible Humean mosaic; that is, its assumption of the principle of indifference, which has been attacked on many grounds ever since it was first proposed. In place of equiprobability, recent formal models represent the doxastic state of total ignorance as suspension of judgment. In this paper I revisit the cosmic coincidence objection to Humean laws by assessing which doxastic state we should endorse. By focusing on specific features of our scenario I conclude that suspending judgment results in an unnecessarily weak doxastic state. First, I point out that recent literature in epistemology has provided independent justifications of the principle of indifference. Second, given that the argument is framed within a Humean metaphysics, it turns out that we are warranted to appeal to these justifications and assign a uniform and additive credence distribution among Humean mosaics. This leads us to conclude that, contrary to widespread opinion, we should not dismiss the cosmic coincidence objection to the Humean account of laws.
Humean Laws in an unHumean World
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , 2017
I argue that an unHumean ontology of irreducibly dispositional properties might be fruitfully combined with what has typically been thought of as a Humean account of laws, namely the best system account, made popular by David Lewis (e.g., 1983, 1986, 1994). In this paper I provide the details of what I argue is the most defensible account of Humean laws in an unHumean world. This package of views has the benefits of upholding scientific realism, whilst doing without any suspect metaphysical entities to account for natural law. I conclude by arguing that the Humean laws-unHumean ontology package is well placed to provide an account of objective, non-trivial chances, a famous stumbling block for the Humean laws-Humean ontology package developed by Lewis.
1. The problem of identii cation and the problem of inference A main issue in the literature on laws is to dee ne criteria which would permit to distinguish genuine lawlike propositions from universally true propositions which describe merely accidental or fortuitous regularities in the world, such as all gold objects have a mass inferior to fty tons, to reformulate a well-known example due to Hans Reichenbach. This is the epistemological problem of identii cation. The challenge here is to formulate criteria, in the sense of suff cient conditions at least, which would justify attributing the title of law to a universally true proposition. If those criteria are satiss ed by the proposition, then we know that it is a law and that it does not just happen to be accidentally true. This is the task that Humean regularists set to themselves. Since, for them, lawlike propositions describe worldly regularities, their aim is to nd criteria which are consistent with their empiricist position and to refrain from introducing ingredients which would go beyond the realm of what is empirically accessible. In other words, serious empiricists are required to shun any kind of metaphysics. As we will see such endeavor is fraught with all sorts of diff culties. On this I agree with van Fraassen who is, in his own words, a " immoderate empiricist " (2000, 1660) and consistently sustains that there are no laws, in the sense that the search for empirically satisfactory criteria which would divide regularities into two distinct classes, lawful and unlawful, is bound to fail. Simply because there is no empirical fact, that is, some empirically detectable special kind of regularities, which would legitimate endowing the propositions which describe them with the title of law. Surely, some regularities are more general than others, but they all are regularities in the rst place and no empirical feature is available which would permit to single out some regularities and endow them with some privileged status. This is why the empiricists who would like to retain the distinction between laws and non-laws, just as scientists do, attempted to devise criteria which are internal to