Laws and Counterfactuals: Defusing an Argument against the Humean View of Laws

Dialogue 50 (4):751-758 (2011)
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Abstract

ABSTRACT: Appealing to the failure of counterfactual support is a standard device in refuting a Humean view on laws of nature: some true generalisations do not support relevant counterfactuals; therefore not every true general fact is a law of nature—so goes the refutation. I will argue that this strategy does not work, for our understanding of the truth-value of any counterfactual is grounded in our understanding of the lawhood of some statements related to it.

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10.1017/s0012217312000054

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References found in this work

Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1983 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
What is a Law of Nature?David Malet Armstrong - 1983 - Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Sydney Shoemaker.
Mental Events.Donald Davidson - 2001 - In Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 207-224.

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