Varieties of dispositional essentialism about natural laws

European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3):1-28 (2021)
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Abstract

An important task for metaphysicians and philosophers of science is to account for laws of nature – in particular, how they distinguish themselves from ‘mere’ regularities, and the modal force they are endowed with, ‘natural necessity’. Dispositional essentialism about laws is roughly the view that laws distinguish themselves by being grounded in the essences of natural entities. This paper does not primarily concern how essentialism compares to its main rivals – Humeanism and Armstrongeanism. Rather, it distinguishes and comparatively assesses various brands of essentialism – which mainly differ as to where exactly they take laws to find their essentialist sources, and what they take to be the targets of laws, namely what they apply to. Yet, this internal comparison is not unrelated to the more general debate about laws: the main criteria with which I compare these essentialist views concern how they can deal with some of the main objections faced by essentialism in general, and how they can keep what is arguably the main intuitive advantage of essentialism over its rivals. Thus, the paper also concerns the relative position of essentialism in the larger debate about laws – ultimately bringing support to it.

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Salim Hirèche
University of Geneva (PhD)

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References found in this work

Laws and symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The metaphysics within physics.Tim Maudlin - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
A World of States of Affairs.D. M. Armstrong - 1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.

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