Challenging Lewis’s challenge to the best system account of lawhood

Synthese 195 (4):1649-1666 (2018)
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Abstract

David Lewis has formulated a well-known challenge to his Best System account of lawhood: the content of any system whatever can be formulated very simply if one allows for perverse choices of primitive vocabulary. We show that the challenge is not that dangerous, and that to account for it one need not invoke natural properties or relativized versions of the Best System account. This way, we help to move towards an even better Best System account. We discuss extensions of our strategy to the discussions about the indexicality of the notion of laws of nature, and to another trivialization argument.

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Author Profiles

Bert Leuridan
University of Antwerp
Rafal Urbaniak
University of Gdansk

Citations of this work

Tractability and laws.Isaac Wilhelm - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-17.

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References found in this work

Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1973 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
What is a Law of Nature?D. M. Armstrong - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Sydney Shoemaker.

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