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The
seminar is held in hybrid
format, in person (Múzeum
krt. 4/i Room 224) and
online at the following
link:
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April (Friday) 4:15
PM Room 224 + ONLINE
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Andrej
Jandrić
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Faculty of Philosophy,
University of Belgrade
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| The
Best System Account versus
the Package Deal Account of
the Laws of Nature
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Humeanism about
laws is the mainstream view of the
metaphysical status of the laws of
nature. The view was inspired by
the writings of David Hume and
further developed by David Lewis
and his adherents. According to
the Humeans, the laws are
regularities in the Humean Mosaic,
i.e. the totality of facts about
the point-size distribution of
perfectly natural properties. The
laws are thus generalisations
grounded in their instances. In
order to distinguish them from
accidentally true generalisations,
Lewis introduced his Best System
Account: laws are theorems of the
best system for our world, i.e.
the system which best balances
informativeness and simplicity.
Lewis placed a restriction on the
language in which the system is
formulated: the predicates which
appear in the axioms of the system
refer to perfectly natural
properties only. Bas van Fraassen
challenged this restriction and
brought into question the assumed
relation between laws and natural
properties. In order to answer van
Fraassen’s challenge, Barry Loewer
has recently proposed his Package
Deal Account of laws and natural
properties. In my talk, I will
consider several different
readings of the Package Deal
Account and argue that each of
them faces problems which did not
arise for the Best System Account.
Keywords: Humeanism about laws,
the Best System Account, the
Package Deal Account, natural
properties
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