How (not) to be a pragmatic Humean.
Recently, philosophers have argued that the laws of Lewis’s Best System Analysis (BSA) are not pragmatically useful. In this paper, I argue that these criticisms are substantive only because the BSA laws are characterized independently of their pragmatic roles. It is important to maintain the distin...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 205; no. 4; pp. 1 - 16 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Apr2025
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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=184534301&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 184534301 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2025 vid: 205 iid: 4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 184534301 10.1007/s11229-025-04994-9 ppf: 1 ppct: 15 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 850KB tig: atl: How (not) to be a pragmatic Humean. aug: au: Demarest, Heather affil: https://ror.org/02ttsq026 University of Colorado, Boulder, US sug: keyword: Humean Laws of nature Pragmatic Usefulness ab: Recently, philosophers have argued that the laws of Lewis’s Best System Analysis (BSA) are not pragmatically useful. In this paper, I argue that these criticisms are substantive only because the BSA laws are characterized independently of their pragmatic roles. It is important to maintain the distinction between what the laws are and what the laws should do if we are to engage in the traditional, metaphysical debates found in the laws literature. While it is plausible that usefulness is an important criterion by which we judge the success of a Humean best system, I argue that we should not take usefulness to constitute a Humean best system. In response to the shortcomings of Lewis’s BSA, many authors have developed new “pragmatic” Humean best system accounts. I argue that these accounts are not characterized independently of the useful roles they are supposed to play for us. This leaves them vulnerable to objections that they may be stipulating the virtues they claim to explain, or they may fail to be Humean best system accounts at all. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2025. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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