-
84Are Humean Laws Flukes?In Christian Loew, Siegfried Jaag & Michael Townsen Hicks (eds.), Humean Laws for Human Agents, Oxford Up. 2023.It has been argued contra Humean accounts of scientific laws that on Humean accounts laws are flukes since they are merely true generalizations and it would be an accident or a fluke for a generalization to obtain unless there was a non-Humean law "backing" it. This paper argues that this kind of objection is mistaken. It goes on to describe an account of laws called "the Package Deal Account" that is a descendent of Lewis' BSA on which it is not an accident that our universe has a best systemat…Read more
-
48Humean laws and explanationPrincipia: An International Journal of Epistemology 23 (3): 373-385. 2019.My primary focus in this paper is on an objection to Humean account of laws and specifically to David Lewis’ “best systems analysis” (BSA). The objection is that the laws according to the BSA (which I call L-laws) fail to account for the ability of laws to explain. In contrast governing laws (which I will call G-laws) are alleged to account for the role of laws in scientific explanations by virtue of their governing role. If governing is required for laws to be explanatory then Humean accounts l…Read more
-
139The package deal account of laws and propertiesSynthese 199 (1-2): 1065-1089. 2020.This paper develops an account of the metaphysics of fundamental laws I call “the Package Deal Account ” that is a descendent of Lewis’ BSA but differs from it in a number of significant ways. It also rejects some elements of the metaphysics in which Lewis develops his BSA. First, Lewis proposed a metaphysical thesis about fundamental properties he calls “Humean Supervenience” according to which all fundamental properties are instantiated by points or point sized individuals and the only fundame…Read more
-
32Comments on Jaegwon Kim's Mind and the Physical WorldPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (3): 655-662. 2002.
-
Freedom from Physics: Quantum Mechanics and Free WillIn Tim Crane & Katalin Farkas (eds.), Metaphysics: a guide and anthology, Oxford University Press. 2004.
-
71A companion to David Lewis (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2015.In _A Companion to David Lewis_, Barry Loewer and Jonathan Schaffer bring together top philosophers to explain, discuss, and critically extend Lewis's seminal work in original ways. Students and scholars will discover the underlying themes and complex interconnections woven through the diverse range of his work in metaphysics, philosophy of language, logic, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, ethics, and aesthetics. The first and only comprehensive study of the work of David…Read more
-
75Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental CausationJournal of Philosophy 98 (6): 315. 2001.
-
39Knowledge and the Flow of Information. Fred I. DretskePhilosophy of Science 49 (2): 297-300. 1982.
-
26Comments on Jaegwon Kim’s M ind and the Physical WorldPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (3): 655-662. 2002.NRP is a family of views differing by how they understand “reduction” and “physicalism.” Following Kim I understand the non-reduction as holding that some events and properties are distinct from any physical events and properties. A necessary condition for physicalism is that mental properties, events, and laws supervene on physical ones. Kim allows various understandings of “supervenience” but I think that physicalism requires at least the claim that any minimal physical duplicate of the actual…Read more
-
2"I have come to think that the laws of physics are real because my experience with the laws of physics does not seem to me to be very different in any fundamental way from my experience with rocks. For those who have not lived with the laws of physics, I can offer the obvious argument that the laws of physics as we know them work, and there is no other known way of looking at nature that works in anything like the same sense.".
-
24Why is there anything except physics?In Jakob Hohwy & Jesper Kallestrup (eds.), Being Reduced: New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation, Oxford University Press. 2008.
-
740Two accounts of laws and timePhilosophical Studies 160 (1): 115-137. 2012.Among the most important questions in the metaphysics of science are "What are the natures of fundamental laws and chances?" and "What grounds the direction of time?" My aim in this paper is to examine some connections between these questions, discuss two approaches to answering them and argue in favor of one. Along the way I will raise and comment on a number of issues concerning the relationship between physics and metaphysics and consequences for the subject matter and methodology of metaphys…Read more
-
Mind Matters in Eighty-Fourth Annual Meeting American Philosophical Association, Eastern DivisionJournal of Philosophy 84 (11): 630-642. 1987.
-
8Counterfactuals and the Second LawIn Huw Price & Richard Corry (eds.), Causation, Physics and the Constitution of Reality: Russell’s Republic Revisited, Oxford University Press. 2007.
-
1Prima Facie obligation: its deconstruction and reconstructionIn Ernest Lepore (ed.), John Searle and His Critics, Blackwell. 1991.
-
306Why is there anything except physics?Synthese 170 (2). 2009.In the course of defending his view of the relation between the special sciences and physics from Jaegwon Kim’s objections Jerry Fodor asks “So then, why is there anything except physics?” By which he seems to mean to ask if physics is fundamental and complete in its domain how can there be autonomous special science laws. Fodor wavers between epistemological and metaphysical understandings of the autonomy of the special sciences. In my paper I draw out the metaphysical construal of his view and…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Physical Science |
Philosophy of Probability |
General Philosophy of Science |