Typical Humean worlds have no laws

Abstract

The paper uses the concept of typicality to spell out an argument against Humean supervenience and the best system account of laws. It proves that, in a very general and robust sense, almost all possible Humean worlds have no Humean laws. They are worlds of irreducible complexity that do not allow for any systematization. After explaining typicality reasoning in general, the implications of this result for the metaphysics of laws are discussed in detail.

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Dustin Lazarovici
Technion, Israel Institute of Technology

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References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
How the laws of physics lie.Nancy Cartwright - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The metaphysics within physics.Tim Maudlin - 2007 - New York: Oxford 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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