Sometimes the world is not enough: The pursuit of explanatory laws in a Humean world

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 84 (2):175–197 (2003)
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Abstract

A novel motivation for a Humean projectivist construal of our concept of scientific law is provided. The analysis is partially developed and used to explain intuitions that are problematic for a Humean reductionist construal of lawhood. A possible non-Humean rejoinder is discussed and rejected. In an appendix, further intuitions that are problematic for Humean reductionists are explained projectively.

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10.1111/1468-0114.00169

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Barry Ward
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Citations of this work

Naturalism, Functionalism and Chance: Not a Best Fit for the Humean.Alison Fernandes - 2023 - In Christian Loew, Siegfried Jaag & Michael Townsen Hicks (eds.), Humean Laws for Human Agents. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Laws, explanation, governing, and generation.Barry Ward - 2007 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (4):537 – 552.
Leis da Natureza.Eduardo Castro - 2013 - Compêndio Em Linha de Problemas de Filosofia Analítics.
Concepts of Law of Nature.Brendan Shea - 2011 - Dissertation, University of Illinois

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References found in this work

Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1983 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Laws and symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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