A new circularity in explanations by Humean laws of nature.
Humean accounts of natural law have long been charged with being unable to account for the laws' explanatory power in science. One form of this objection is to charge Humean accounts with explanatory circularity: a fact in the Humean mosaic helps to explain why some regularity is a law (first premis...
| Publicado en: | Philosophical Studies Vol. 180; no. 3; pp. 1001 - 1017 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Mar2023
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=162678520&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 162678520 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00318116 4L8 jtl: Philosophical Studies issn: 00318116 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2023 vid: 180 iid: 3 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 162678520 10.1007/s11098-023-01925-7 ppf: 1001 ppct: 16 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 518KB tig: atl: A new circularity in explanations by Humean laws of nature. aug: au: Lange, Marc affil: Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 27599-3125, Chapel Hill, NC, USA su: Physical laws Hume, David, 1711-1776 Mosaic evolution Metaphysics Philosophy & science sug: subj: Physical laws Hume, David, 1711-1776 Mosaic evolution Metaphysics Philosophy & science keyword: David Lewis Humeanism Laws of nature Scientific explanation ab: Humean accounts of natural law have long been charged with being unable to account for the laws' explanatory power in science. One form of this objection is to charge Humean accounts with explanatory circularity: a fact in the Humean mosaic helps to explain why some regularity is a law (first premise), but that law, in turn, helps to explain why that mosaic fact holds (second premise). To this objection, Humeans have replied that the explanation in the first premise is metaphysical whereas the explanation in the second premise is scientific, so (since these two varieties of explanation operate very differently) the two explanations cannot be chained together to yield explanatory circularity. This paper presents a new circularity argument that avoids this objection because both explanations in the premises are metaphysical. The new circularity argument also avoids the objection that the contrasts at the point where the two explanations are chained together fail to line up properly. The upshot is to leave the Humean account of law with two unattractive options: to regard scientific explanation under natural law as not constituting genuine explanation at all or to regard the Humean account as involving a vicious explanatory circularity. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Philosophical Studies is a copyright of Springer, 2023. All Rights Reserved. item: Philosophical Studies holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2023 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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