Laws of Nature

Laws of Nature

Author: John W. Carroll

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994-02-25

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9780521433341

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John Carroll undertakes a careful philosophical examination of laws of nature, causation, and other related topics. He argues that laws of nature are not susceptible to the sort of philosophical treatment preferred by empiricists. Indeed he shows that empirically pure matters of fact need not even determine what the laws are. Similar, even stronger, conclusions are drawn about causation. Replacing the traditional view of laws and causation requiring some kind of foundational legitimacy, the author argues that these phenomena are inextricably intertwined with everything else.


Rethinking Order

Rethinking Order

Author: Nancy Cartwright

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-06-30

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1474244084

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This book presents a radical new picture of natural order. The Newtonian idea of a cosmos ruled by universal and exceptionless laws has been superseded; replaced by a conception of nature as a realm of diverse powers, potencies, and dispositions, a 'dappled world'. There is order in nature, but it is more local, diverse, piecemeal, open, and emergent than Newton imagined. In each chapter expert authors expound the historical context of the idea of laws of nature, and explore the diverse sorts of order actually presupposed by work in physics, biology, and the social sciences. They consider how human freedom might be understood, and explore how Newton's idea of a 'universal designer' might be revised, in this new context. They argue that there is not one unified totalizing program of science, aiming at the completion of one closed causal system. We live in an ordered universe, but we need to rethink the classical idea of the 'laws of nature' in a more dynamic and creatively diverse way.


Nature's Challenge to Free Will

Nature's Challenge to Free Will

Author: Bernard Berofsky

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-01-05

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0199640017

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This book offers a defense of humean compatibilism, which bases the belief in the compatibility of free will and determinism on David Hume's idea that laws do not uphold the existence of necessary connections in nature.


Mental Causation

Mental Causation

Author: Thomas Kroedel

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1108487149

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Presents a comprehensive account of how the mind causes things to happen in the physical world. This book is also available as Open Access.


The Metaphysics Within Physics

The Metaphysics Within Physics

Author: Tim Maudlin

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2007-04-19

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0199218218

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What does physics tell us about metaphysics? Tim Maudlin's philosophical examination of the fundamental structure of the world as presented by physics challenges the most widely accepted philosophical accounts of laws of nature, universals, the direction of time and causation.


Nature's Metaphysics

Nature's Metaphysics

Author: Alexander Bird

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2007-08-09

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0199227012

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Bird, a world-leader in the field, offers an original approach to key issues in philosophy. He discusses hot topics in metaphysics and the philosophy of science.


Supervenience and Mind

Supervenience and Mind

Author: Jaegwon Kim

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1993-11-26

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780521439961

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This collection of essays presents the core of the work of influential philosopher Jaegwon Kim.


Causation and Laws of Nature

Causation and Laws of Nature

Author: H. Sankey

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 1999-12-31

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 9780792359142

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Causation and Laws of Nature is a collection of articles which represents current research on the metaphysics of causation and laws of nature, mostly by authors working in or active in the Australasian region. The book provides an overview of current work on the theory of causation, including counterfactual, singularist, nomological and causal process approaches. It also covers work on the nature of laws of nature, with special emphasis on the scientific essentialist theory that laws of nature are, at base, the fundamental dispositions or capacities of natural kinds of things. Because the book represents a good cross-section of authors currently working on these themes in the Australasian region, it conveys something of the interest and excitement of an active philosophical debate between advocates of several different research programmes in the area.