Cover
The Metaphysics of Laws of Nature: The Rules of the Game
Copyright
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chronology 1600โ1900
1: The Game
1. Starting out
2. Methods
3. Three Axes
4. Structure
PART I: OPENINGS
2: The Early Days
1. The Debate
2. The Wrong Criterion
3. The Thin Concept
4. Starting over
5. Descartes
5.1 Laws and Ontology
5.2 The Problem of Ceteris Paribus Clauses
5.3 Intentions, not Regularities
5.4 Epistemic Problems
6. Virtues and Vices
3: Descartesโs Legacy
1. Malebranche: Intervention or Autonomy?
1.1 Efficacious Laws
1.2 Leibnizโs Critique
2. Newton
2.1 Methods and Varieties of Explanation
2.2 Ontology
3. Berkeley
3.1 Early Berkeley
3.2 The Web of Laws in De Motu
4. Summing up: Top-down Laws in the Modern Period
PART II: CONTEMPORARY TOP-DOWN VIEWS
4: Primitivism
1. Governing without God
2. Motivations
3. Mirrors and Spin
4. The Underdetermination Argument
5. What is Governing?
5.1 The Governing Dilemma
6. The Virtues of Primitivism
5: Universals (I)
1. Motivations
2. Armstrongโs View
3. Quiddities: Epistemic Worries
4. Quiddities: Metaphysical Worries
5. Epiphenomenalism?
6. Laws and Explanation
7. Intra-world Variance
6: Universals (II)
1. The Inference Problem
1.1 Legitimacy
1.2 Mechanism
2. A Revision: N as an Internal Relation
3. Applications of the Revised View
4. Modal Inversion
5. Conservation Laws
6. The Ontology of Relations
7. A Second Revision: Many-to-One
8. The Price of Revision
PART III: POWERS
7: Origins of the Powers View
1. The Moderns
2. Bacon
3. Spinoza
4. Euler and Shepherd
5. Helmholtz
6. A Contemporary View
8: The Powers Ontology
1. Whose Powers?
2. Essential and Invariant
3. Independent
4. Intrinsic
5. Reciprocal
6. Irreducible
7. Intentional
8. Functions
9. Relational Views
10. The Inevitability of Physical Intentionality
9: The Arguments for Powers
1. The Conceptual Argument
2. Arguments from Science
2.1 The Missing Categorical Properties
2.2 The Ungrounded Argument
2.3 The Vices of Humility
3. The Metaphysical and Epistemic Arguments
3.1 A Regress?
3.2 Ignorance
4. Varieties of Dispositionalism
4.1 Pan-dispositionalism
4.2 Dual-sided and Neutral Monist Views
4.3 Dualism
5. The Best Powers View
10: Facing up to the Moderns
1. Doubts
2. Little Souls
2.1 Holism
2.2 Monism
2.3 The Blower
3. The Modernsโ Way out
3.1 Locks and Keys
3.2 Extrinsic and Reducible Powers
3.3 Problems
PART IV: THE REGULARITY THEORY AND BEYOND
11: Origins: Hume and Mill
1. A New Family
2. Force and Gravity
3. The Tension in Hume
4. Millโs Web
12: Contemporary Best Systems Analyses (I)
1. Two Masters
2. Anthropomorphism and Better Systems for Us
3. Natural Properties
4. Humean Supervenience
5. The Underdetermination Argument Redux
6. Counterfactuals
13: Contemporary Best Systems Analyses (II)
1. Mirrors and Nomic Stability
2. ExplanationโCase
3. ExplanationโWhole
4. What is a Regularity?
5. Ceteris Paribus Clauses
6. The Central Tension
7. Ceteris Paribus Redux
14: The Alternatives
1. The State of Play
2. Conservative Projectivism
3. Contemporary Projectivism
4. Laws as Rules
4.1 The Mismatch Problem
4.2 The Problem of Ceteris Paribus Clauses
4.3 Truth and Supervenience
4.4 Counterfactuals and Explanation
4.5 Nomic Stability
5. The Path of Anti-realism
PART V: THE ENDGAME
15: Settling up
1. The Rules
2. Three Axes
3. Law Statements to Truthmakers
4. Top-down/Bottom-up
5. Realism/Anti-realism
6. The Hybrids
7. Decisions
References
Index
