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Platonic Laws of Nature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2019

Tyler Hildebrand Open the ORCID record for Tyler Hildebrand [Opens in a new window]
Tyler Hildebrand*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
*
Email: hildebrand@dal.ca
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Abstract

David Armstrong accepted the following three theses: universals are immanent, laws are relations between universals, and laws govern. Taken together, they form an attractive position, for they promise to explain regularities in nature—one of the most important desiderata for a theory of laws and properties—while remaining compatible with naturalism. However, I argue that the three theses are incompatible. The basic idea is that each thesis makes an explanatory claim, but the three claims can be shown to run in a problematic circle. I then consider which thesis we ought to reject (hint: see the title) and suggest some general lessons for the metaphysics of laws.

Keywords

Laws of natureuniversalsgovernanceexplanationDavid Armstrong
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , April 2020 , pp. 365 - 381
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

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