After defending the ontologically genuine existence of at least some of the actual nomic relations, I discuss some issues concerning their metaphysical features. I firstly argue in favour of the metaphysical contingency of nomic relations and then I suggest that their relata-specificity is the most plausible metaphysical view that guarantees the unity of facts that the laws of nature are. Finally, I present a novel account according to which some of the actual nomic relations (...) are neither external nor external but contingently possess a kind of hybrid character. (shrink)

The bulk of the literature concerning the governing role of non-Humean laws has been concentrated on the alleged incapability of higher order nomic facts to determine the regularities in the behaviour of actual objects, the so-called Inference Problem. Most recently Ioannidis, Livanios and Psillos (2021) argue that an adequate solution to the Inference Problem requires an answer to the question of how nomic relations manage to ‘tell’ properties what to do. Ioannidis et al. dub the difficulty that (...) all extant accounts of governing laws face to give such an answer, the Governing Problem and introduce a Dualist Model, according to which the specific behaviour of things in the world is the outcome of both the thin powers things have to be subjected to laws, and certain nomic features of the world. The aim of this paper is to show that the most plausible form of the Dualist Model can provide the basis for a novel version of the Powerful Qualities View about properties. To this end it presents ways of developing two aspects of the Dualist Model. It defends the view that nomic relations must be relata-specific in order to play their theoretical role within the Model and provides arguments for the view that natural properties should have the minimum (compatible with the core tenets of the Model) modal strength. (shrink)

Armstrong holds that a law of nature is a certain sort of structural universal which, in turn, fixes causal relations between particular states of affairs. His claim that these nomic structural universals explain causal relations commits him to saying that such universals are irreducible, not supervenient upon the particular causal relations they fix. However, Armstrong also wants to avoid Plato’s view that a universal can exist without being instantiated, a view which he regards as incompatible with (...) naturalism. This construal of naturalism forces Armstrong to say that universals are abstractions from a certain class of particulars; they are abstractions from first-order states of affairs, to be more precise. It is here argued that these two tendencies in Armstrong cannot be reconciled: To say that universals are abstractions from first-order states of affairs is not compatible with saying that universals fix causal relations between particulars. Causal relations are themselves states of affairs of a sort, and Armstrong’s claim that a law is a kind of structural universal is best understood as the view that any given law logically supervenes on its corresponding causal relations. The result is an inconsistency, Armstrong having to say that laws do not supervene on particular causal relations while also being committed to the view that they do so supervene. The inconsistency is perhaps best resolved by denying that universals are abstractions from states of affairs. (shrink)

Bird’s Ultimate Argument sought to show that Armstrong’s N relationships involving categorical universals can’t entail nomic regularities. In N’s place Bird offered the non-categorical SR relation. Two kinds of objection have been raised: either Bird’s own alternative metaphysics fails in just the same way as Armstrong’s or the target of Bird’s argument may anyway have a way out of the problem. My aim is to reclaim the victory for Bird. I argue that the responses in defence of Armstong’s N (...) relationships fail to acknowledge that Bird was explicitly concerned with Armstrong’s commitment to a categoricalist view of universals. Moreover, Bird’s alternative account does not suffer the same problem since his metaphysics of properties is essentialist. Nevertheless, Bird’s account does need elaborating on to explainwhySR relationships entail their regularities. I offer Schaffer’s Axiomatic Solution as a candidate for this purpose. (shrink)

Assuming that the target of theory oriented empirical science in general and of nomic truth approximation in particular is to characterize the boundary or demarcation between nomic possibilities and nomic impossibilities, I have presented, in my article entitled “Models, postulates, and generalized nomic truth approximation” :3057–3077, 2016. 10.1007/s11229-015-0916-9), the ‘basic’ version of generalized nomic truth approximation, starting from ‘two-sided’ theories. Its main claim is that nomic truth approximation can perfectly be achieved by combining two (...) prima facie opposing views on theories: the traditional view: theories are postulates that exclude certain possibilities from being realizable, enabling explanation and prediction and the model view: theories are sets of models that claim to represent certain realizable possibilities. Nomic truth approximation, i.e. increasing truth-content and decreasing falsity-content, becomes in this way revising theories by revising their models and/or their postulates in the face of increasing evidence. The basic version of generalized nomic truth approximation is in many respects as simple as possible. Among other things, it does not take into account that one conceptual possibility may be more similar to another than a third one. However, for example, one theory may include a possibility that is more similar to a wrongly not included possibility than another theory can offer. Similarly, for wrongly not excluded possibilities. In this article it will be shown that such ‘refined’ considerations can be taken into account by adapted clauses based on a ternary similarity relation between possibilities. This allows again abductive conclusions about refined truth approximation if a theory is persistently more successful in the refined sense than another. It will also be indicated and illustrated that this refined approach enables a specification to the effect that refined truth approximation can be obtained by the method of idealization and subsequent concretization. Finally, the basic and the refined approach will be evaluated with regard to some general principles and objections that have been discussed in the literature. (shrink)

I introduce "nomic-role nonreductionism" as an alternative to traditional causal-role functionalism in the philosophy of mind. Rather than identify mental properties by a theory that describes their intra-level causal roles via types of inputs, internal states, and outputs, I suggest that one identify mental properties by a more comprehensive theory that also describes inter-level realization roles via types of lower-level engineering, internal mental states, and still higher-level states generated by them. I defend this position on grounds that mental properties (...) should be understood by our best scientific theories, which at present include informatioin about mental engineering. I further defend this claim by a "parity of reasons" argument. Causal-role functionalists are justified to include sensory stimuli in their theory of mind as opposed to, say, the remote causes of sensory stimuli because the former but not the latter are items of direct mental production. But ditto for the system's physical realizations. They too directly produce mental states, only not by "causing" them but by "realizing" them. Engineering realizations and their input triggering conditions work in tandem. In addition, I tell a related but more general metaphysical story about property identity, namely, that the traditional causal theory should be replaced by a more comprehensive nomic theory that individuates properties by their intra-level causal powers as well as their inter-level realization capacities. (shrink)

An adequate account of laws should satisfy at least five desiderata: it should provide a unified account of laws and chances, it should yield plausible relations between laws and chances, it should vindicate numerical chance assignments, it should accommodate dynamical and non-dynamical chances, and it should accommodate a plausible range of nomic possibilities. No extant account of laws satisfies these desiderata. This paper presents a non-Humean account of laws, the Nomic Likelihood Account, that does.

This monograph presents new ideas in nomic truth approximation. It features original and revised papers from a philosopher of science who has studied the concept for more than 35 years. Over the course of time, the author's initial ideas evolved. He discovered a way to generalize his first theory of nomic truth approximation, viz. by dropping an unnecessarily strong assumption. In particular, he first believed to have to assume that theories were maximally specific in the sense that they (...) did not only exclude certain conceptual possibilities, but also that all non-excluded possibilities were in fact claimed to be nomically possible. Now, he argues that the exclusion claim alone, or for that matter the inclusion claim alone, is sufficient to motivate the formal definition of being closer to the nomic truth. The papers collected here detail this generalized view of nomic truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Besides this, the book presents, in adapted form, the relation with several other topics, such as, domain revision, aesthetic progress, abduction, inference to the best explanation, pragmatic aspects, probabilistic methods, belief revision and epistemological positions, notably constructive realism. Overall, the volume presents profound insight into nomic truth approximation. This idea seeks to determine how one theory can be closer to, or more similar to, the truth about what is nomically, e.g. physically, chemically, biologically, possible than another theory. As a result, it represents the ultimate goal of theory oriented empirical science. Theo Kuipers is the author of Studies in Inductive Probability and Rational Expectation, From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism and Structures in Science. He is the volume-editor of the Handbook on General Philosophy of Science. In 2005 there appeared two volumes of Essays in Debate with Theo Kuipers, entitled Confirmation, Empirical Progress, and Truth Approximation and Cognitive Structures in Scientific Inquiry. (shrink)

character. So, we have learned from early on that laws are meant to portray a sort of necessity in nature. The comings and goings described by law are not merely contingently related. Rather, it is part of the concept of law that these events are connected in some significant way: "nomically" connected. One important desideratum for an account of law, then, is that it respect and perhaps explain this modal character.

So far, the most prominent measure for actual truthlikeness, i.e. the likeness of a theory to the actual truth, is Ilkka Niiniluoto’s minsum definition, which is purely based on distances. A competing definition is the average distance measure proposed by Pavel Tichy and Graham Oddie. We will define three related, distance and size based, measures for actual truthlikeness and compare them with the two well-known options. However, we will start, Sect. 2, from a trio of such measures for nomic (...) truthlikeness. The nomic truth, or the true theory, here refers to what is nomically, e.g. physically, possible. In a nomic (and factual) context there are two basic kinds of theories, viz. either based on an exclusion claim or on an inclusion claim. Two-sided theories combine these claims, with the maximal claim as extreme special case. We will base truthlikeness measures for exclusion, inclusion, two-sided, and hence maximal, nomic theories on two similarity measures, one in terms of distances between conceptual possibilities and the other in terms of sizes of sets of such possibilities. In Sect. 3 we will treat actual truthlikeness as extreme special case of nomic truthlikeness, viz. assuming that there is just one nomic possibility, the actual one. Next we will compare the resulting measures mutually and with the above mentioned measures of Niiniluoto and Tichy & Oddie. Finally, in Sect. 4, we will sum up the results and explore five questions for further research. (shrink)

I characterize a notion of causal agency that is the causitive component of many transitive verbs. The agency of what I call substantial causes relates objects physically to systems with which they interact. Such agent causation does not reduce to conditionship relations, nor does it cease to play a role in scientific discourse. I argue, contrary to regularity theories, that causal claims do not in general depend for their sense on generalities nor do they entail the existence of laws. (...) Clarification of the relationships among substantial causes, causal processes, and explanatory conditions separates the analysis of causal connection from that of nomological connection. This clarification is then applied to a variety of issues in the analysis of causality. (shrink)

Since 1949, the year that Kurt Gödel presented his solutions to Einstein’s field equations, there has been much discussion of time travel within the philosophical literature. Whereas theorizing about time travel had theretofore been relegated to the realm of science fiction, the imprimatur of Gödel’s work elevated the legitimacy of such discussion. It finally appeared that travel into the past might be a physical—if not yet technological—possibility. For the past few decades, philosophical inquiry into backward time travel and the closely (...) related topic of backward causation has centered on the logical possibility and conceptual coherence of these phenomena. In this paper, various conceptual problems associated with time travel concerning the nature of agency and nomological structure will be explored. However, the existence of such conceptual difficulties does not threaten the logical or physical possibility of time travel. Ultimately, the most rational stance to take regarding time travel may ultimately be one of epistemic humility, by which is meant a stance involving the admission that conceptual analysis may not constitute a very fruitful methodology for understanding the physical nature of our world. (shrink)

EI desarrollo de su teoría de las leyes como relaciones entre universales condujo a Armstrong a establecer un marco metafísico general mas complejo que el que sus anteriores trabajos presentaban. En este artículo se exponen los aspectos principales de la metafísica de particulares y universales exigida por la identificación original de Armstrong de las leyes con estados de cosas universales. Además, se presentan diversas dificultades que pueden hallarse en su propuesta, y algunas soluciones para las mismas. Los temas principales que (...) se discuten son las leyes con excepciones, las leyes con restriccionesespacio-temporales, las leyes probabilísticas y las leyes no ejemplificadas.The development of his theory of laws as relations between universals led Armstrong to set up a more complex general metaphysical framework than that advanced in his previous works. In this paper I present the main traits of the metaphysics of properties and particulars required by Armstrongsoriginal identification of laws with universal states of affairs. Besides, I advance some serious drawbacks that can be found in his proposal and I also offer some solutions to them. The main subjects to be discussed here will be laws with exceptions, laws with spatio-temporal limitations, probabilistic laws and uninstantiated laws. (shrink)

I argue that it is possible to perceptually represent colour relations between two objects, without perceptually representing their colours. Such primitive relational colour representation goes against the orthodox view that we represent colour relations by virtue of representing colours. I first argue that under certain assumptions, PRCR is conceptually and even nomically possible. I then compare two possible models of PRCR: the linguaform model and chromatic edge model, the latter involving iconic rather than discursive representation. I argue that (...) the chromatic edge model gives a better account of putative cases of PRCR in cerebral achromatopsia, a rare disorder of colour consciousness. (shrink)

b>: In this article I outline, apply, and defend a theory of natural representation. The main consequences of this theory are: i) representational status is a matter of how physical entities are used, and specifically is not a matter of causation, nomic relations with the intentional object, or information; ii) there are genuine (brain-)internal representations; iii) such representations are really representations, and not just farcical pseudo-representations, such as attractors, principal components, state-space partitions, or what-have-you;and iv) the theory allows (...) us to sharply distinguish those complex behaviors which are genuinely cognitive from those which are merely complex and adaptive. (shrink)

A well-known difficulty that affects all accounts of laws of nature according to which the latter are higher-order facts involving relations between universals (the so-called DTA accounts, from Dretske in Philosophy of Science 44:248–268, 1977; Tooley in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7:667–698, 1977 and Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983)) is the Inference Problem: how can laws construed in that way determine the first-order regularities that we find in the actual world? Bird (Analysis (...) 65:147–55, 2005) has argued that there is no solution to the Inference Problem which is consistent with both categorical monism (that is, the view that all natural properties are categorical) and basic tenets of Armstrong’s account of the laws of nature. This paper shows that, given Armstrong’s view about laws as first-order structural universals whose instantiation ‘produce’ nomic regularities and under specific plausible metaphysical assumptions concerning nomic relations which are consistent with a broadly construed DTA approach to laws, there is no extra difficulty regarding the Inference Problem in a categorical monistic context besides the ones that beset structural universals in general. (shrink)

This book examines the metaphysical issues regarding the powerful qualities view in all its various forms. The author also develops and defends his own version of the powerful qualities view, which he calls powerful categoricalism. In recent years, the powerful qualities view about the nature of properties has received considerable attention in the philosophical literature. The core tenet of the powerful qualities view is that properties are both dispositional and categorical/qualitative. Despite the increased popularity of the powerful qualities view, there (...) is no book-length presentation of the view in its distinct versions. The first part of this book analyzes the advantages and drawbacks of each version of the theory paying special attention to those difficulties that make it unstable and perhaps incomprehensible. In the second part, the author shows how a developed version of a dualist model for the origin of natural modality-according to which the specific behaviour of things in the world is the outcome of both the thin power properties have to be nomically relatable and certain nomic relations that determine properties' nomological role-can support an alternative understanding of the main tenet of the powerful qualities view. This part, in combination with the discussion of the difficulties of the other versions, not only defends the tenability of powerful categoricalism but also its superiority over the other extant versions. The Metaphysics of Powerful Qualities makes an original contribution to an ongoing debate in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

As the dust jacket proclaims, “this is surely Fodor’s most irritating book in years …. It should exasperate philosophers, linguists, cognitive psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists alike.” Yes, Fodor is an equal-opportunity annoyer. He sees no job for conceptual analysts, no hope for lexical semanticists, and no need for prototype theorists. When it comes to shedding light on concepts, these luminaries have delivered nothing but moonshine. Fodor aims to remedy things, and not just with snake oil. He serves up plenty of (...) clever barbs, potshots, and one-liners, not to mention arguments, to promote his “informational atomism.” It states that there is a large class of concepts, namely lexical concepts, that are ontologically and semantically primitive: each such concept has no internal structure and has its content not in virtue of any relation it bears to other concepts but in virtue of a nomic relation it bears to some property. The property it is thus “locked to” is its content. (shrink)

This paper examines the asymmetrical aspect of causal relation, confronting it to Humean and Neo-Humean's view. Following Hausman and Ehring, we favor a situational approach to causal asymmetry. We explore the Hausman's analysis of flagpole's example, clearing the connexions between causation and explanation. Our general diagnosis is that the Neo-humean tradition wrongly supposes that nomic relations, with the exception of minor details, exhaust the causal relations.

Causal essentialists hold that a property essentially bears its causal and nomic relations. Further, as many causal essentialists have noted, the main motivations for causal essentialism also motivate holding that properties are individuated in terms of their causal and nomic relations. This amounts to a kind of identity of indiscernibles thesis; properties that are indiscernible with respect to their causal and nomic relations are identical. This can be compared with the more well-known identity of (...) indiscernibles thesis, according to which particulars that are qualitatively indiscernible are identical. Robert Adams has developed a well-known objection to this thesis by considering a series of possibilities involving nearly qualitatively indiscernible particulars that naturally leads to a possibility involving qualitatively indiscernible particulars. I argue that we can construct parallel cases involving a series of possibilities involving properties that are nearly indiscernible with respect to their causal and nomic relations that naturally lead to possibilities involving properties that are indiscernible with respect to their causal and nomic relations. The same features that make Adams’ argument forceful also carry over to my cases, giving us a powerful objection to the causal essentialist identity of indiscernibles thesis. (shrink)

Given their physical realization, what causal work is left for functional properties to do? Humean solutions to the exclusion problem (e.g. overdetermination and difference-making) typically appeal to counterfactual and/or nomic relations between functional property-instances and behavioural effects, tacitly assuming that such relations suffice for causal work. Clarification of the notion of causal work, I argue, shows not only that such solutions don't work, but also reveals a novel solution to the exclusion problem based on the relations (...) between dispositional properties at different levels of mechanism, which involves three central claims: (i) the causal work of properties consists in grounding dispositions, (ii) functional properties are dispositions, and (iii) the dispositions of mechanisms are grounded in the dispositions of their components. Treating functional mental properties as dispositions of components in psychological mechanisms, I argue that such properties do the causal work of grounding agent-level dispositions. These dispositions, while ultimately grounded in the physical realizers of mental properties, are indirectly so grounded, through a hierarchy of grounding relations that extends upwards, of necessity, through the mental domain. (shrink)

This book adds to a realist account of laws of nature the framework for a related realist understanding of causation. It has two main parts: the first is concerned with laws, the second with causation. In the first main part, Tooley surveys sophisticated regularity accounts of laws and argues that none is successful. One of his central themes is that regularity accounts fail to meet the intuition that there can be underived laws which lack relevant instances--an intuition which Tooley supports (...) by appeal to two crucial examples. Tooley's diagnosis is that the reductionist assumption that the truth-makers for laws of nature are facts about particulars must be abandoned, and that laws must therefore be facts about universals. What kinds of facts? Tooley sets out a careful specification of the theoretical concept of a nomological relation. But he grants a need to go beyond this in order to make his account illuminating: Just how much has been explicated by the claim that what makes it a law that whatever has property P also has property Q is that the universals P and Q stand in a certain "nomic" relation? To answer this, and to dispel other doubts, Tooley offers the speculative suggestion that for it to be a law that whatever is P is also Q is for the conjunctive universal P-and-Q to exist, and for the universal P to exist, but only "dependently," as part of the conjunctive universal P-and-Q. Tooley argues that his specification of nomic relations can be extended to cover the case of probabilistic laws. It is unclear, however, how his speculative metaphysics could be extended to cover the probabilistic case: Can the universal P exist only to some degree as part of the conjunctive universal P-and-Q, and at the same time to another degree as part of the universal P-and-R? (shrink)

Humean Supervenience is the view that (a) there are a plurality of fundamental beings, (b) there are no inexplicable constraints on modal space, and hence the fundamental nature of each such being is independent of those of all the rest and of the fundamental relations in which it stands to the rest, (c) the fundamental beings stand in no fundamental causal or nomic relations, and hence (d) the distribution of any causal or nomic relations in (...) which they do stand globally supervenes on their fundamental natures and the non‐nomic, non‐causal fundamental relations in which they stand. If Humean Supervenience is true, then as A.J. Ayer put it, it's just one damn thing after another. Radical Pluralism is the view that Humean Supervenience is true, and, moreover, that none of the fundamental beings stands in any fundamental relations at all. If Radical Pluralism is true, then, as William James puts it, the world's pieces are held together by nothing more than conjunction: it's just one damn thing and another. I argue that Radical Pluralism is very likely true, conditional upon Humean Supervenience. Any philosopher pluralist enough to be Humean ought to be radically pluralistic. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor’s causal theory of content is a well-known naturalistic attempt purporting to show that Brentano was wrong in supposing that physical states cannot possess meaning and reference. Fodor’s theory contains two crucial elements: one is a notion of “asymmetric dependence between nomic relations,” and the other is an assumption about the nature of the “causally operative properties” involved in the causation of mental tokens. Having dealt elsewhere with the problems Fodor’s notion of asymmetric dependence poses, we show (...) in this paper a difficulty with the other element of his theory concerning what kinds of properties are the causally operative ones in the tokenings of a semantic symbol in the brain of a perceiver. After presenting this difficulty, we examine three possible responses a Fodorian might make to our criticism. (shrink)

Causal Determinism (CD) entails that all of a person’s choices and actions are nomically related to events in the distant past, the approximate, but lawful, consequences of those occurrences. Assuming that history cannot be undone nor those (natural) relations altered, that whatever results from what is inescapable is itself inescapable, and the contrariety of inevitability and freedom, it follows that we are completely devoid of liberty: our choices are not freely made; our actions are not freely performed. Instead of (...) disputing the soundness of this reasoning, some philosophers prefer to maintain that we could yet have a small measure of freedom were CD true of our world: although being unable to choose or act differently, one could at least under normal circumstances truly claim to be acting ‘on one’s own’, beyond the control of ‘outside forces’, in a word, autonomous. They further argue that being free in this sense suffices for moral responsibility. Call their philosophy ‘Autonomy Compatibilism’ (AC). -/- In adopting here reactive attitudes towards an agent, one is choosing to highlight the fact that the individual in question is of sound mind, reasoning and acting free from the interference of others. These facts alone, the adherent of AC claims, justify his stance, despite the necessity of the agent’s choices. Why would we not regard a sane individual who is not being coerced, intimidated, deceived or unduly put upon as in charge of his life so as to be responsible for his activities? -/- The Manipulation Argument (MA) is supposed to cut off this line of retreat. Its authors hold that, were CD true of our world, we would be no more autonomous than a victim of “covert, non-constraining control” (CNC): manipulation whereby one person causes another, through the use of methods such as brainwashing or circumspect operant conditioning, to ‘do his bidding’ without the latter being aware of his subjugation or feeling in any way coerced. Since a CNC victim obviously lacks autonomy, then so must “persons” living in a deterministic universe. Defenders of AC have, then, the following argument with which to contend: -/- 1. Victims of CNC (obviously) lack autonomy. 2. Thus, AC would be true only if some definition of autonomy succeeds in specifying a freedom relevant difference between victims of CNC and agents whose choices/actions are necessary consequences of prior events. 3. There could be no such definition. 4. Therefore, AC must be false. -/- The challenge issued here is clear: find a way to refute the claim that being subject to natural laws would be tantamount to being a victim of CNC, to show that Nature is no manipulator. Moreover, this challenge cannot be met by responding with a Frankfurt case: a situation in which things have been surreptitiously arranged so that an agent is unable to avoid doing something that he manages to do ‘on his own’, thus, being autonomous despite his inability to act otherwise. For, even if CD is not inconsistent with autonomy because it eliminates the ability to do otherwise per se, it may yet entail that no human agent ever does act of his own accord, an implication of which would be a lack of alternatives on anyone’s part. In other words, the fact that causally determined beings could never act differently than they do does is perhaps only symptomatic of the reason why such beings would lack autonomy: forces beyond their control would have dominion over their psychological development. Thus, AC advocates must show that the way that an agent’s character would be shaped, were she (merely) subject to natural laws, would leave unimpaired an ability that CNC would destroy. What follows is a definition of this ability, which I also use to solve the Problem of Freedom and Foreknowledge. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a strong continuity between the transcendental deduction of the principle of purposiveness of nature and the transcendental deduction of the ideas from the first critique. On these grounds, I provide an interpretation of the transcendental deduction of the principle of purposiveness of nature in which I argue that: 1) the necessity of the principle of purposiveness of nature does not derive from its role in solving some specific philosophical problem but from its relation to (...) a cognitive goal; 2) the representation of nature as conforming to the maxims of judgement is a direct, immediate consequence of a certain cognitive goal that the necessity of the empirical laws mentioned by Kant in the transcendental deduction of the principle of purposiveness of nature is not so much their nomic necessity, but their necessity as consequences of higher laws. (shrink)

This paper aims to explain why the laws of nature are held fixed in counterfactual reasoning. I begin by highlighting three salient features of counterfactual reasoning: it is conservative, nomically guided, and it uses hindsight. I then present a rationale for our engagement in counterfactual reasoning that aims to make sense of these features. In particular, I argue that counterfactual reasoning helps us evaluate the evidential relations between unanticipated pieces of evidence and various hypotheses of interest about the history (...) of the actual world. Given this goal, it makes a great deal of sense that counterfactual reasoning would have the aforementioned features. Additionally, it turns out that this account of counterfactual reasoning is nicely congruent with Humean views of laws. Specifically, it can explain, in a Humean-friendly way, both why the laws are counterfactually resilient, and why we may be inclined to have anti-Humean intuitions in the first place, even if some form of Humeanism is correct. (shrink)

In a lot of domains in metaphysics the tacit assumption has been that whichever metaphysical principles turn out to be true, these will be necessarily true. Let us call necessitarianism about some domain the thesis that the right metaphysics of that domain is necessary. Necessitarianism has flourished. In the philosophy of maths we find it held that if mathematical objects exist, then they do of necessity. Mathematical Platonists affirm the necessary existence of mathematical objects (see for instance Hale and Wright (...) 1992 and 1994; Wright 1983 and 1988; Schiffer 1996; Resnik 1997; Shapiro 1997 and Zalta 1988) while mathematical nominalists, usually in the form of fictionalists, hold that necessarily such objects fail to exist (see for instance Balaguer 1996 and 1998; Rosen 2001 and Yablo 2005). In metaphysics more generally, until recently it was more or less assumed that whatever the right account of composition—the account of under what conditions some xs compose a y—that account will be necessarily true (for a discussion of theories of composition see Simons 1987 and van Inwagen 1987 and 1990; the modal status of the composition relation is explicitly addressed in Schaffer 2007; Parsons 2006 and Cameron 2007). Similarly, it has generally been assumed that whatever the right account is of the nature of properties, whether they be universals, tropes, or whether nominalism is true, that account will be necessarily true (though see Rosen 2006 for a recent suggestion to the contrary). In considering theories of persistence it has been widely held that whether objects endure or perdure through time is a matter of necessity (Sider 2001; though see Lewis 1999 p227 who defends contingent perdurantism). And with respect to theories of time it is frequently held that whichever of the A- or B-theory is true is necessarily true. A-theorists often argue that there is time in a world only if the A-theory is true at that world (see for instance McTaggart 1903; Markosian 2004; Bigelow 1996; Craig 2001) while B-theorists often argue that the A-theory is internally inconsistent (Smart 1987; Mellor 1998; Savitt 2000 and Le Poidevin 1991). Once again, we find a few recent contingentist dissenters. Bourne (2006) suggests that it is a contingent feature of time that it is tensed, and thus that the A-theory is contingently true. Worlds in which there exist only B-theoretic properties are worlds with time, it is just that time in those worlds time is radically different to the way it is actually. Other defenders of the B-theory, though not expressly contingentists, do offer arguments against versions of the A-theory that try to show that such A-theories theories are inconsistent with the actual laws of nature (see for instance Saunders 2002 and Callender 2000); these arguments, at least, leave room for the possibility that the A-theories in question are contingently false (at least on the assumption that the laws of nature are themselves contingent, an assumption that not everyone accepts). Despite some notable exceptions, necessitarianism has flourished in many, if not most, domains in metaphysics. One such exception is Lewis’ famous defence of Humean supervenience as a contingent claim about our world. Lewis does not argue that necessarily, the supervenience base for all matters of fact in a world is nothing but a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact. Rather, he thinks that we have reason to think that our world is one in which Humean supervenience holds (see Lewis 1986 p9-10 and 1994). Another exception to the necessitarian orthodoxy is to be found in the lively debate about the modal status of the laws of nature. Here, if anything, contingentism has been the dominating force, with it generally being held that there are possible worlds in which different laws of nature hold (this view is defended by, among others, Lewis 1986 and 2010; Schaffer 2005 and Sidelle 2002). Necessitarian dissenters hold that the laws of nature are necessary, frequently because they think it is necessary that fundamental properties have the causal or nomic profiles they do (see for instance Shoemaker 1980 and 1988; Swoyer 1982; Bird 1995; Ellis and Lierse 1994). Nevertheless, when it comes to thinking about the nature of the laws themselves, the necessitarian presumption is back on firm footing. Though there is disagreement about whether the laws are generalisations that feature in the most virtuous true axiomatisation of all the particular matters of fact (often known as the Humean view of laws and defended by Ramsey 1978; Lewis 1986 and Beebee 2000) or whether laws are relations of necessity that hold between universals (a view defended by Armstrong 1983; Dretske 1977; Tooley 1977 and Carroll 1990) no one has seriously suggested that it might be a contingent matter which of these is the right account of laws. The necessitarian orthodoxy is not surprising since metaphysics is largely an a priori process. While a priori reasoning may be used to determine whether a proposition is necessary or contingent, it is not well placed (in the absence of a posteriori evidence) to determine whether a contingent proposition is actually true or false. Since metaphysicians aim to tell us which principles are true in which worlds, on the face of it the discovery that metaphysical principles are contingent seems to make part of the task of metaphysics epistemically intractable. In what follows I consider two reasons one might end up embracing contingentism and whether this would lead one into epistemic difficulty. The following section considers a route to contingent metaphysical truths that proceeds via a combination of conceptual necessities and empirical discoveries. Section 3 considers whether there might be synthetic contingent metaphysical truths, and the final section raises the question of whether if there were such truths we would be well placed to come to know them. (shrink)

Properties seem to play an important role in causal relations. But philosophers disagree over whether or not properties play their causal or nomic roles essentially. Causal essentialists say that they do, while quidditists deny it. This article surveys these two views, as well as views that try to find a middle ground.

This chapter formulates and motivates the current favored articulation of the metaphysical doctrine of materialism. It describes an alternative metaphysical position called minimal emergentism, which has two versions; and then contrasts it with stronger kinds of emergentism. Minimal emergentism posits certain inter-level necessitation relations — either nomically necessary connections, or metaphysically necessary connections — that are metaphysically brute. The chapter sets forth what it takes to be some very powerful challenges to materialism — challenges involving features of human consciousness. (...) Finally, the chapter argues that in light of these challenges, minimal emergentism is a viable and theoretically appealing non-materialist metaphysic of mind. (shrink)

In this article I intend to show that the inference problem, one of the main objections raised against the anti-Humean theory of natural laws defended by Dretske, Tooley and Armstrong (“DTA theory” for short), can be successfully answered. First, I argue that a proper solution should meet two essential requirements that the proposals made by the DTA theorists do not satisfy. Then I state a solution to the inference problem that assumes a local immanentistic view of universals, a partial definition (...) of the nomic necessitation relation as a relation of existential dependence, and a principle constraining multiple occupancy. I also argue that my solution meets the two requirements. Finally, I deal with non-standard laws such as exclusion laws, causal laws and laws involving spatiotemporal parameters. (shrink)

In this article I intend to show that the inference problem, one of the main objections raised against the anti-Humean theory of natural laws defended by Dretske, Tooley and Armstrong ("DTA theory" for short), can be successfully answered. First, I argue that a proper solution should meet two essential requirements that the proposals made by the DTA theorists do not satisfy. Then I state a solution to the inference problem that assumes a local immanentistic view of universals, a partial definition (...) of the nomic necessitation relation as a relation of existential dependence, and a principle constraining multiple occupancy. I also argue that my solution meets the two requirements. Finally, I deal with non-standard laws such as exclusion laws, causal laws and laws involving spatiotemporal parameters. (shrink)

Are the laws of nature real? Do they belong to the world or merely reflect the way we speak about it? If they are real, what sort of entity are they? This study contributes to the ongoing discussion of these questions by emphasizing the importance of a cosmological perspective on them. I argue that the evidence coming from modern evolutionary cosmology presents difficulties for certain currently fashionable philosophical accounts of laws, in particular, for the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong theory. I defend, in light (...) of this evidence, the idea of laws as grounded in irreducible nomic properties of basic objects and examine its cosmological implications and consequences for the philosophy of modality. ;If the laws of nature are real, they must represent an integral aspect of the universe as a whole. From a cosmological point of view, these two totalities, the laws of nature and the universe, may be related. I begin by showing that a concern about the consequences of such possible relationship was an important factor in the historical rivalry between the steady-state and big bang cosmologies . ;The cosmological perspective on laws has still more striking implications in the context of the contemporary interplay between big-bang cosmology and high energy physics in the effort to understand the processes at work during the first moments of cosmic evolution. In a sense, the evolution of the physical state of the universe as a whole may have "carried" with it the evolution of certain nomic properties of matter. I contend that this poses problems for some nomic ontologies, such as the relations-between-universals theory, and favors the view of laws as grounded in causal powers of particulars. I show how the universe of causally powerful basic substances provides a natural framework for an interesting sense of modality characteristic of laws and how this illuminates the notoriously difficult problems of essential properties and natural kinds. (shrink)

Over the past decade, we have witnessed some early signs of progress in the battle against international bribery and corruption, a problem that throughout the history of commerce had previously been ignored. We present a model that we then use to assess progress in reducing bribery. The model components include both hard law and soft law legislation components and enforcement and compliance components. We begin by summarizing the literature that convincingly argues that bribery is an immoral and unethical practice and (...) that the economic harm it causes falls most heavily on those least able to absorb it. The next section summarizes the main provisions of anti-bribery legislation including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the Organization for Eco nomic Development's Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Officials in International Business Transactions, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and the laws of selected countries. We conclude this section with a discussion of the "moral imperialism" argument for not imposing Western laws and values on other cultures. The next section focuses on the roles played by NGOs including Transparency International (TI), the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the International Chamber of Commerce. We review trends in enforcement and prosecution, including a review of the United States' enforcement processes, mechanisms for cross-border legal assistance, a discussion of the distinctive nature of FCPA cases, and an assessment of what the future holds for enforcement. The final section focuses on compliance processes for corporations aimed at reducing the risk of FCPA and related violations. This section also addresses the ethics of gift giving and "grease" payments. The article concludes with a summary and suggestions for further research. Throughout the article, we reference important bribery cases and include comments from several authorities who are on the front lines of the battle against international bribery. (shrink)

The better best system account, short BBSA, is a variation on Lewis’s theory of laws. The difference to the latter is that the BBSA suggests that best system analyses can be executed for any fixed set of properties. This affords the possibility to launch system analyses separately for the set of biological properties yielding the set of biological laws, chemical properties yielding chemical laws, and so on for the other special sciences. As such, the BBSA remains silent about possible interrelations (...) between these freestanding sets of laws. In this paper, I explicate an emergence relation between them which preserves the autonomy or novelty of each special science’s laws but also shows their dependence: the autonomy of each level’s generalisations is given because nomicity is conferred to them system intrinsic, their dependence is established via their supervenience on lower level laws. As will be shown, the autonomy of special science laws is further strengthened by their ceteris paribus character. (shrink)

Armstrong (1983) poses two requirements that law-statements must satisfy in order to support the corresponding counterfactuals. He also argues that law-statements can not satisfy one of these requirements if they merely express regularities, although both requirements are satisfied if law-statements are interpreted as expressing relations between universals. I try to show that Armstrong’s argument can be raised against Armstrong’s own solution by adding three premisses to it: the inference thesis, the contingency thesis and a principle whose rationality I also (...) argue for. Finally, I offer a more reasonable alternative condition for nomic counterfactual supporting which is satisfied by law-statements if they are interpreted as expressing relations between universals, but not so if we interpret them as mere regularities. (shrink)

An approach to inference to the best explanation integrating a Popperianconception of natural laws together with a modified Hempelian account of explanation, one the one hand, and Hacking's law of likelihood (in its nomicguise), on the other, which provides a robust abductivist model of sciencethat appears to overcome the obstacles that confront its inductivist,deductivist, and hypothetico-deductivist alternatives.This philosophy of scienceclarifies and illuminates some fundamental aspects of ontology and epistemology, especially concerning the relations between frequencies and propensities. Among the most (...) important elements of this conception is thecentral role of degrees of nomic expectability in explanation, prediction,and inference, for which this investigation provides a theoretical defense. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to sketch an empiricist metaphysics of laws of nature. The key idea is that there are regularities without regularity-enforcers. Differently put, there are natural laws without law-makers _of a distinct metaphysical kind_. This sketch will rely on the concept of a natural pattern and more significantly on the existence of a network of natural patterns in nature. The relation between a regularity and a pattern will be analysed in terms of mereology. Here is the (...) road map. In section 2, I will briefly discuss the relation between empiricism and metaphysics, aiming to show that an empiricist metaphysics is possible. In section 3, I will offer arguments against stronger metaphysical views of laws. Then, in section 4 I will motivate nomic objectivism. In section 5, I will address the question ‘what is a regularity?’ and will develop a novel answer to it, based on the notion of a natural pattern. In section 6, I will raise the question: ‘what is a law of nature?’, the answer to which will be: a law of nature is a regularity that is characterised by the unity of a _natural_ pattern. (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)

In this article I intend to show that the inference problem, one of the main objections raised against the anti-Humean theory of natural laws defended by Dretske, Tooley and Armstrong (?DTA theory? for short), can be successfully answered. First, I argue that a proper solution should meet two essential requirements that the proposals made by the DTA theorists do not satisfy. Then I state a solution to the inference problem that assumes a local immanentistic view of universals, a partial definition (...) of the nomic necessitation relation as a relation of existential dependence, and a principle constraining multiple occupancy. I also argue that my solution meets the two requirements. Finally, I deal with non-standard laws such as exclusion laws, causal laws and laws involving spatiotemporal parameters. (shrink)

Reflection on “the contemporary crisis” must take into account that, beyond financial problems in global capitalist administration, the crisis works over a fall of the human in relation to which every postulation of an affirmative biopolitics seems insufficient. The biopolitical condition responds to a process of nomic self-consecration of technical structures that dramatically increase the capacity to oppress without doing much for the capacity to tolerate it. This essay engages with Heidegger, Keynes, Weber and Schmitt, as thinkers of the (...) “crisis,” in order to understand their apotropaic modulations in the face of the biopolitical fall that they had themselves detected, and for which today we find ourselves without the conceptual apparatus we need to confront it. (shrink)

It is natural to think that our ordinary practices in giving explanations for our actions, for what we do, commit us to claiming that content properties are causally relevant to physical events such as the movements of our limbs and bodies, and events which these in turn cause. If you want to know why my body ambulates across the street, or why my arm went up before I set out, we suppose I have given you an answer when I say (...) that I wanted to greet a friend on the other side of the street, and thought that my arm's going up would be interpreted by him as a signal to stop for a moment. This widely held view might be disputed, but I shall not argue for it in this paper. I want to start with the view that our beliefs and desires and other propositional attitudes are causally relevant, in virtue of their modes and particular contents, to our movements, in order to investigate the consequences for analyses of thought content. For this purpose, I argue, in sec. II, for three necessary conditions on causal relevance: (a) a nomic sufficiency condition, (b) a logical independence condition, and (c) a screening-off condition. In sec. III, I apply these conditions to relational and functional theories of thought content, arguing that these theories cannot accommodate the causal relevance of content properties to our behaviour. I argue further that, on two plausible assumptions, one about the dependence of the mental on the physical, and the other about the availability in principle of causal explanations of our movements in terms of our non-relational physical properties, content properties can be causally relevant only if they are nomically type-correlated, relative to certain circumstances, with non-relational physical properties of our bodies. In sec. IV, I respond to a number of objections that might be advanced against this conclusion. (shrink)

D. M. Armstrong has objected that the Dispositionalist theory of laws and properties is modally inverted, for it entails that properties are constituted by relations to non-actual possibilia. I contend that, if this objection succeeds against Dispositionalism, then Armstrong's nomic necessitation relation is also modally inverted. This shows that at least one of Armstrong's reasons for preferring a nomic necessitation theory is specious.

This book advocates dispositional essentialism, the view that natural properties have dispositional essences. 1 So, for example, the essence of the property of being negatively charged is to be disposed to attract positively charged objects. From this fact it follows that it is a law that all negatively charged objects will attract positively charged objects; and indeed that this law is metaphysically necessary. Since the identity of the property of being negatively charged is determined by its being related in a (...) certain way to the property of being positively charged, in any world in which these properties exist they must be related so that all negatively charged objects attract positively charged objects.Bird opposes his dispositional essentialism to the view that properties are categorical in nature, with their identities grounded in quiddities that are not exhausted by their relations to other properties. The main exponents of this view are D.M. Armstrong and David Lewis. They take the laws of nature to be contingent though they entertain very different views about their nature: Armstrong is a necessitarian about laws, taking them to be relations of nomic necessitation between universals, while Lewis is a Humean about laws who takes them to be a special kind of regularity. The book is a sustained defence of the dispositional essentialist conception of properties and laws against the competing conceptions espoused by Armstrong and Lewis. One rough way to characterize the difference between these conceptions is to say that the categoricalist sees properties as passive and inert with the laws of nature being fixed independently of the nature of properties whereas, in contrast, the dispositional essentialist sees properties as active potencies from which the laws of nature automatically spring. A slightly more tendentious way to express the difference is to say, as Bird does, that the …. (shrink)

D. M. Armstrong, Michael Tooley, and Fred Dretske have recently proposed a new realist account of laws of nature, according to which laws of nature are objective relations between universals. After criticizing this account, I develop an alternative realist account, according to which (1) the nomic structure of a world is a relation between initial world-histories and world-histories, and (2) a law of nature is a fact that holds solely in virtue of nomic structure (and not, for (...) example, in virtue of past history). (shrink)

In (1990), Jerry Fodor has defended a naturalized conception of meaning for Mentalese expressions which relies on the notion of asymmetric dependence. According to this conception, any naturalized theory of meaning must be able to account for the fact that meaning is robust, namely that any token of a certain Mentalese expression “x” retains the expression’s meaning, X, for any Y (≠ X) which happens to cause it. Now, this robustness of “x”‘s meaning can precisely be explained in terms of (...) the subsistence of an asymmetric dependence of any nomic connection between Ys and “x”‘s tokens on another nomic connection between Xs and “x”‘s tokens. According to Fodor, then, this relation between nomic connections can account in perfectly naturalistic terms for “x” meaning X, by providing a sufficient condition for such a meaning. In what follows, however, I will try to show, first, that the subsistence of asymmetric dependencies of the kind envisaged by Fodor is not enough for assigning meaning to a certain expression. Indeed, there are dependencies of this kind which are meaning-irrelevant. Secondly, I will claim that asymmetric dependence relations are not able even to support for the robustness of meaning. For there are cases in which according to the structure of these relations we would have to conclude that meaning is altered although robustness would require to have it unchanged. (shrink)

Section 1 introduces the category of objective modality, closely related to linguists’ category of circumstantial or dynamic modals, and explains metaphysical modality as its maximal element. Section 2 discusses various kinds of skepticism about modality, as in Hume and recent authors, and argues that it is illmotivated to apply such skepticism to metaphysical modality but not to more restricted objective modalities, including nomic modality. Section 3 suggests that the role of counterfactual conditionals in applications of scientific theories involves an (...) objective modal dimension. Section 4 briefly discusses the role of objective probabilities in scientific theories as exemplifying the scientific study of objective modality. Section 5 summarizes a case study of dynamical systems theory, widely used in natural science, as a mathematical theory whose intended applications are objectively modal, as perspicuously articulated in a language with modal and temporal operators and propositional quantification. State spaces in natural science characterize objective possibilities. Section 6 argues that, although those possibilities are usually more restricted than metaphysical possibility, their scientific study is a partial study of metaphysical possibility too. (shrink)

Arguments, suggested by readings of Durkheim and Kroeber, for the integrity and autonomy of social theory are examined. These arguments may be construed as closure arguments on domains of social events and of social facts. Causal closure, ontic closure, and several kinds of nomic and explanatory closure are distinguished. Discussion of the relations of various kinds of closure, integrity, autonomy, etc. under plausible assumptions concerning causation and explanation leads to the conclusion that one main strand of the integrity (...) arguments is defensible; special ontological assumptions are not necessary and are dubiously sufficient for autonomy. This general conclusion accords with the positions of the later Kroeber and of D. Kaplan, that integrity-autonomy is best considered a methodological, not an ontological issue--a matter of distinct levels of description and explanation, not distinct levels of reality. (shrink)

In a recent and most compelling paper, Professor Edward Madden has argued, in effect, that it is high time for the removal of the Hume-colored glasses on causality through which too many philosophers have been seeing “nomic” necessity for too long. Rather, it is Madden’s contention that the Humean view on causality contains far more “ontological looseness” than is justified and needs to be supplanted by a view of causality as “natural necessity that carries with it an internal warrant (...) of inductive inference”. However, while there can be little doubt that the view proposed by Madden is ontologically “tighter” than the Humean view, he makes it clear at the outset that his correction of Hume is not to be identified “with the familiar entailment view of causality”. Now this, I believe, raises a very interesting point, namely, while Madden says that his view is not to be identified with the entailment position, he never gets down to telling us precisely how it differs from the latter. In this regard, then, it shall be my contention that there is no substantive difference whatsoever between Madden’s view and the entailment view. Hence, while I agree with virtually everything Madden has said on causality and agree with it largely because I do take it to be a much needed and cogent correction of the Humean position, I hope to show that, ironically enough, the view for which Madden argues necessarily commits him to the very entailment view he is so obviously anxious to avoid. That is, I am convinced that the view proposed and defended by Madden is—from start to finish—identical with the view that the causal relation is a relation of entailment. (shrink)