Minimal anti-Humeanism
نویسنده
چکیده
I argue that there is a tension in our theorizing about laws of nature. We have powerful reasons to think that laws are not universal generalizations – if they are we would face the problem of explanatory circularity. But we have powerful reasons, stemming from our practice of using and reasoning with laws of nature, to think that laws are universal generalizations. I start by elucidating this tension. I then suggest a view of laws that avoids this tension – I call it Minimal anti-Humeanism. The view says that the laws are the universal generalizations that are not grounded in their instances. This view has advantages in addition to avoiding the tension – for example, it is ontologically minimal and provides clear answers to the classic identification and inference problems for accounts of law. I end by locating the view in the Humean versus anti-Humean debate. The view turns out to be *Thanks to Barry Loewer, Michael Strevens, Dan Waxman and two referees for, and the editor of, AJP for very helpful comments on previous versions of the paper. †This is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form will be published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. The Australasian Journal of Philosophy is available online at: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/.
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تاریخ انتشار 2016