The question of David Armstrong's recent book, What Is a Law of Nature? would seem to have little point unless there really are laws of nature. However that may be, so much philosoFhical thinking has utilized this concept, that an inquiry of this sort was needed whether there are or not. The book begins with a devastating attack on so-called Regularity views of law, and then proceeds with an exposition of Armstrong's own answer to the question. I wish to raise (...) here some difficulties for Armstrong's answer, concentrating on his account of probabilistic laws where I see the severest problems. To locate myself with respect to his approach, however, I shall first enter some lesser demurrals. (shrink)

An argument for realism (i.E., The ontological thesis that there exist universals) has emerged in the writings of david armstrong, Fred dretske, And michael tooley. These authors have persuasively argued against traditional reductive accounts of laws and nature. The failure of traditional reductive accounts leads all three authors to opt for a non-Traditional reductive account of laws which requires the existence of universals. In other words, These authors have opted for accounts of laws which (together with the fact that there (...) are laws) entail that realism is true. This argument for realism which emerges from the work of armstrong, Dretske, And tooley is discussed and criticized. Conclusions from the discussion question the tenability of all reductive accounts of laws. (shrink)

During the last half of the twentieth century, legal philosophy (or legal theory or jurisprudence) has grown significantly. It is no longer the domain of a few isolated scholars in law and philosophy. Hundreds of scholars from diverse fields attend international meetings on the subject. In some universities, large lecture courses of five hundred students or more study it. The primary aim of the Law and Philosophy Library is to present some of the best original work on legal philosophy from (...) both the Anglo-American and European traditions. Not only does it help make some of the best work avail able to an international audience, but it also encourages increased awareness of, and interaction between, the two major traditions. The primary focus is on full-length scholarly monographs, although some edited volumes of original papers are also included. The Library editors are assisted by an Editorial Advisory Board of internationally renowed scholars. Legal philosophy should not be considered a narrowly circumscribed field. (shrink)

In "nominalism and realism" armstrong carefully demolishes various nominalist responses to plato's "one over many" problem but simply dismissed the quinean response as "ostrich nominalism". The paper argues that plato's problem is pseudo. So to ignore it is not to behave like an ostrich. Rather to adopt realism because of this problem that isn't there is to be a "mirage realist." there are some good reasons that lead armstrong to realism but he is largely a mirage realist. Quine does not (...) ignore any real problem for nominalism and so is not an ostrich nominalist. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the question of the truth conditions of nomological statements. My fundamental thesis is that it is possible to set out an acceptable, noncircular account of the truth conditions of laws and nomological statements if and only if relations among universals - that is, among properties and relations, construed realistically - are taken as the truth-makers for such statements. My discussion will be restricted to strictly universal, nonstatistical laws. The reason for this limitation is not that (...) I feel there is anything dubious about the concept of a statistical law, nor that I feel that basic laws cannot be statistical. The reason is methodological. The case of strictly universal, nonstatistical laws would seem to be the simplest case. If the problem of the truth conditions of laws can be solved for this simple subcase, one can then investigate whether the solution can be extended to the more complex cases. I believe that the solution I propose here does have that property, though I shall not pursue that question here.1. (shrink)