Switch to: References

Citations of:

Are Causal Laws Contingent?

In John Bacon, Keith Campbell & Lloyd Reinhardt (eds.), Ontology, Causality and Mind: Essays in Honour of D M Armstrong. New York: Cambridge University Press (1993)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Quiddistic Knowledge.Jonathan Schaffer - 2005 - Philosophical Studies 123 (1):1-32.
    Is the relation between properties and the causal powers they confer necessary, or contingent? Necessary, says Sydney Shoemaker, on pain of skepticism about the properties. Contingent, says David Lewis, swallowing the skeptical conclusion. I shall argue that Lewis is right about the metaphysics, but that Shoemaker and Lewis are wrong about the epistemology. Properties have intrinsic natures (quiddities), which we can know.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   108 citations  
  • Jeffrey Grupp.Compresence is A. Bundle - forthcoming - Metaphysica.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Categoricalism, dispositionalism, and the epistemology of properties.Matthew Tugby - 2014 - Synthese 191 (6):1-16.
    Notoriously, the dispositional view of natural properties is thought to face a number of regress problems, one of which points to an epistemological worry. In this paper, I argue that the rival categorical view is also susceptible to the same kind of regress problem. This problem can be overcome, most plausibly, with the development of a structuralist epistemology. After identifying problems faced by alternative solutions, I sketch the main features of this structuralist epistemological approach, referring to graph-theoretic modelling in the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Radical Non-dispositionalism and the Permutation Problem.Vassilios Livanios - 2014 - Axiomathes 24 (1):45-61.
    Radical non-dispositionalism is the view according to which the actual causal/nomic roles of natural properties are totally irrelevant to their de re modal representation. The major difficulty besetting all forms of radical non-dispositionalism is that the latter allegedly allows the metaphysical possibility of two natural properties swapping their actual causal/nomic roles. The aim of this paper is to provide a plausible solution to that problem. To this end, I describe the necessary steps that a proponent of the view may take (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Necessary Laws.Max Kistler - 2005 - In Jan Faye, Paul Needham, Uwe Scheffler & Max Urchs (eds.), Nature's Principles. Springer. pp. 201-227.
    In the first part of this paper, I argue against the view that laws of nature are contingent, by attacking a necessary condition for its truth within the framework of a conception of laws as relations between universals. I try to show that there is no independent reason to think that universals have an essence independent of their nomological properties. However, such a non-qualitative essence is required to make sense of the idea that different laws link the same universals in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Functionalism and The Independence Problems.Darren Bradley - 2013 - Noûs 47 (1):545-557.
    The independence problems for functionalism stem from the worry that if functional properties are defined in terms of their causes and effects then such functional properties seem to be too intimately connected to these purported causes and effects. I distinguish three different ways the independence problems can be filled out – in terms of necessary connections, analytic connections and vacuous explanations. I argue that none of these present serious problems. Instead, they bring out some important and over-looked features of functionalism.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Exploring the Metaphysics of Nomic Relations.Vassilios Livanios - 2012 - Acta Analytica 27 (3):247-264.
    After defending the ontologically genuine existence of at least some of the actual nomic relations, I discuss some issues concerning their metaphysical features. I firstly argue in favour of the metaphysical contingency of nomic relations and then I suggest that their relata-specificity is the most plausible metaphysical view that guarantees the unity of facts that the laws of nature are. Finally, I present a novel account according to which some of the actual nomic relations are neither external nor external but (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Schaffer on laws of nature.Alastair Wilson - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 164 (3):653-667.
    In ‘Quiddistic Knowledge’ (Schaffer in Philos Stud 123:1–32, 2005), Jonathan Schaffer argued influentially against the view that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. In this reply I aim to show how a coherent and well-motivated form of necessitarianism can withstand his critique. Modal necessitarianism—the view that the actual laws are the laws of all possible worlds—can do justice to some intuitive motivations for necessitarianism, and it has the resources to respond to all of Schaffer’s objections. It also has certain (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   32 citations  
  • Dispositions and Ontology.Denny Bradshaw - 2003 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 41 (2):169-182.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The nomic role account of carving reality at the joints.Peter Vallentyne - 1998 - Synthese 115 (2):171-198.
    Natural properties are those that carve reality at the joints. The notion of carving reality at the joints, however, is somewhat obscure, and is often understood in terms of making for similarity, conferring causal powers, or figuring in the laws of nature. I develop and assess an account of the third sort according to which carving reality at the joints is understood as having the right level of determinacy relative to nomic roles. The account has the attraction of involving very (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Against A Posteriori Functionalism.Marc A. Moffett - 2010 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 40 (1):83-106.
    There are two constraints on any functionalist solution to the Mind-Body Problem construed as an answer to the question, “What is the relationship between the mental properties and relations (hereafter, simply the mental properties) and physical properties and relations?” The first constraint is that it must actually address the Mind-Body Problem and not simply redefine the debate in terms of other, more tractable, properties (e.g., the species-specific property of having human-pain). Such moves can be seen to be spurious by the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Causal Theory of Properties and the Causal Theory of Reference, or How to Name Properties and Why It Matters.Robert D. Rupert - 2008 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (3):579 - 612.
    forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Functionalism, mental causation, and the problem of metaphysically necessary effects.Robert D. Rupert - 2006 - Noûs 40 (2):256-83.
    The recent literature on mental causation has not been kind to nonreductive, materialist functionalism (‘functionalism’, hereafter, except where that term is otherwise qualified). The exclusion problem2 has done much of the damage, but the epiphenomenalist threat has taken other forms. Functionalism also faces what I will call the ‘problem of metaphysically necessary effects’ (Block, 1990, pp. 157-60, Antony and Levine, 1997, pp. 91-92, Pereboom, 2002, p. 515, Millikan, 1999, p. 47, Jackson, 1998, pp. 660-61). Functionalist mental properties are individuated partly (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Does General Relativity Highlight Necessary Connections in Nature?Antonio Vassallo - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):1-23.
    The dynamics of general relativity is encoded in a set of ten differential equations, the so-called Einstein field equations. It is usually believed that Einstein's equations represent a physical law describing the coupling of spacetime with material fields. However, just six of these equations actually describe the coupling mechanism: the remaining four represent a set of differential relations known as Bianchi identities. The paper discusses the physical role that the Bianchi identities play in general relativity, and investigates whether these identities (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • What Price Changing Laws of Nature?Olivier Sartenaer, Alexandre Guay & Paul Humphreys - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (1):1-19.
    In this paper, we show that it is not a conceptual truth about laws of nature that they are immutable (though we are happy to leave it as an open empirical question whether they do actually change once in a while). In order to do so, we survey three popular accounts of lawhood—(Armstrong-style) necessitarianism, (Bird-style) dispositionalism and (Lewis-style) ‘best system analysis’—and expose the extent, as well as the philosophical cost, of the amendments that should be enforced in order to leave (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • (1 other version)A Theory of Constitutive Tropes.Anthony Parisi - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Iowa
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Not Enough Powers.Peter Forrest - 2014 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 6 (3):25--37.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • (1 other version)Causal and Metaphysical Necessity.Shoemaker Sydney - 1998 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (1):59-77.
    Any property has two sorts of causal features: “forward‐looking” ones, having to do with what its instantiation can contribute to causing, and ldquo;backward‐looking” ones, having to do with how its instantiation can be caused. Such features of a property are essential to it, and properties sharing all of their causal features are identical. Causal necessity is thus a special case of metaphysical necessity. Appeals to imaginability have no more force against this view than they do against the Kripkean view that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   107 citations  
  • Powerful Qualities Beyond Identity Theory.Vassilis Livanios - 2020 - Metaphysica 21 (2):279-295.
    Until recently, the powerful qualities view about properties has been effectively identified with the so-called identity theory. Yet, the difficulties that the latter faces (especially concerning the interpretation of its core claim that dispositionality and qualitativity are identical) have led some metaphysicians to propose (at least provisionally) new versions of the powerful qualities view. This paper discusses the prospects of three such versions: the compound view, the higher-order properties theory and the dual aspect account. It is argued that the compound (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • (1 other version)A theory of constitutive tropes.Anthony Parisi - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Iowa
    The purpose of this work is to provide a metaphysical theory of properties and scientific laws. This sentence will require some unpacking. By a ‘metaphysical’ theory here, I mean a theory of what exists in the world. In this investigation I am primarily concerned with a theory of what properties there are in the world and the role they play in scientific laws. This may be contrasted with a linguistic or epistemic project, as it is not primarily about our language, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • A powers theory of modality: or, how I learned to stop worrying and reject possible worlds.Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 151 (2):227-248.
    Possible worlds, concrete or abstract as you like, are irrelevant to the truthmakers for modality—or so I shall argue in this paper. First, I present the neo-Humean picture of modality, and explain why those who accept it deny a common sense view of modality. Second, I present what I take to be the most pressing objection to the neo-Humean account, one that, I argue, applies equally well to any theory that grounds modality in possible worlds. Third, I present an alternative, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   86 citations  
  • The question of realism for powers.Lorenzo Azzano - 2019 - Synthese 196 (1):329-354.
    In recent years, a new dispute has risen to prominence: the dispute between realists and anti-realists about causal powers. Albeit sometimes overlooked, the meta-ontological features of this “question of realism for powers” are quite peculiar. For friends and foes of causal powers have characterized their contrasting views in a variety of different ways; as existence claims, as semantic or truth-making claims, as fundamentality claims, as claims about the nature of certain properties. Not only does this multiplicity of interpretations make it (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  • Are all possible laws actual laws?Simon Bostock - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (4):517 – 533.
    Suppose it is a law that all Fs are G. Does the law hold in all possible worlds? According to Necessitarianism, it holds in at least all those worlds containing F-ness. I argue that the Necessitarian must also take the law to hold in all those possible worlds which do not contain F-ness. Accepting the principle that a law can only hold in a world if it has some ontological grounding in that world, I argue that Necessitarianism is committed to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Simon Bostock.Property Realism - forthcoming - Metaphysica.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Determinables in Frames.David Hommen - 2020 - Acta Analytica 36 (2):291-310.
    In this paper, I assess the ontological commitments of frame-based methods of knowledge representation. Frames decompose concepts into recursive attribute-value structures. Attributes are the general aspects by which a category or individual is described; their values are more or less specific properties that are assigned to the referential object. The question is: are these properties to be interpreted as universals or as tropes? Some trope theorists allege that an interpretation in terms of universals is incompatible with frames for individuals in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Truthmaking, recombination, and facts ontology.Frank Hofmann - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 128 (2):409-440.
    The idea of truthmakers is important for doing serious metaphysics, since a truthmaker principle can give us important guidance in finding out what we would like to include into our ontology. Recently, David Lewis has argued against Armstrong’s argument that a plausible truthmaker principle requires us to accept facts. I would like to take a close look at the argument. I will argue in detail that the Humean principle of recombination on which Lewis relies is not plausible (independently of the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • A note on scientific essentialism, laws of nature, and counterfactual conditionals.Marc Lange - 2004 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (2):227 – 241.
    Scientific essentialism aims to account for the natural laws' special capacity to support counterfactuals. I argue that scientific essentialism can do so only by resorting to devices that are just as ad hoc as those that essentialists accuse Humean regularity theories of employing. I conclude by offering an account of the laws' distinctive relation to counterfactuals that portrays laws as contingent but nevertheless distinct from accidents by virtue of possessing a genuine variety of necessity.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Method and Metaphysics: A Legal Historian's Canon.C. G. Bateman - 2014 - Journal Jusrisprudence 23:255-312.
    In the following research I discuss a number of issues which are fundamental to my understanding of how best to reconstruct past human events from the methodological outlook of a legal historian. Herein one will find an explanation of and justification for the various aspects of the historical method and philosophy I employ in my larger research area involving the Roman Emperor Constantine, the Christian Church, and state sovereignty. I also discuss some lines of intersection between modern day legal actors (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Essential Properties - Analysis and Extension.Nathan Wildman - 2011 - Dissertation, Cambridge
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark