Laws of Nature: Necessary and Contingent

Samuel Kimpton-Nye

doi:10.1093/pq/pqab062

Laws of Nature: Necessary and Contingent

Samuel Kimpton-Nye^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Philosophy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

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131 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This paper shows how a niche account of the metaphysics of laws of nature and physical properties—the Powers-BSA (Demarest 2017; Kimpton-Nye 2017; Williams 2019)—can underpin both a sense in which the laws are metaphysically necessary and a sense in which it is true that the laws could have been different. The ability to reconcile entrenched disagreement should count in favour of a philosophical theory, so this paper constitutes a novel argument for the Powers-BSA by showing how it can reconcile disagreement about the laws’ modal status. This paper also constitutes a defence of modal necessitarianism, the interesting and controversial view according to which all worlds are nomologically identical (Edgington 2004; Schaffer 2005; Wilson 2013; Kimpton-Nye 2020), because it shows how the modal necessitarian can appease the orthodox contingentist about laws.

Original language	English
Article number	pqab062
Pages (from-to)	875-895
Number of pages	21
Journal	The Philosophical Quarterly
Volume	72
Issue number	4
Early online date	6 Dec 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqab062
Publication status	Published - 1 Oct 2022

Bibliographical note

The research for this paper has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's (EU) Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement No 771509 ('MetaScience').”

Keywords

contingency
laws of nature
modality
necessity
pragmatism
real patterns

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MetaScience: The Metaphysical Unity of Science
Tahko, T. (Principal Investigator), Seifert, V. A. (Researcher), Friend, T. T. (Researcher), Kimpton-Nye, S. (Researcher), Bellazzi, F. (Student), Franklin, A. (Other ) & Morgan, W. H. (Researcher)
1/09/18 → 31/08/23
Project: Research

Cite this

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Laws of Nature: Necessary and Contingent

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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MetaScience: The Metaphysical Unity of Science

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