How to be Humean about symmetries

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (forthcoming)
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Abstract

I describe three extant attempts to identify the global external symmetries within a Humean framework with theorems of some or other deductive systematization of the world, respectively, the best system, a meta-best system and a maximally simple system. Each has merits, but also serious flaws. Instead, I propose a view of global external symmetries as consequences of the structure of Humean-consistent world-making relations.

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Toby Friend
Freie Universität Berlin

Citations of this work

The Humean pragmatic turn and the case for revisionary best systems accounts.Toby Friend - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (1):1-26.
On Powers BSAs.Toby Friend - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (2):452-475.

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References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
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.
Science Without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism.Hartry H. Field - 1980 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.

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