Reference : Making best systems best for us
Scientific journals : Article
Arts & humanities : Philosophy & ethics
http://hdl.handle.net/10993/35821
Making best systems best for us
English
Loew, Christian* mailto [University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE) > Identités, Politiques, Sociétés, Espaces (IPSE) >]
Jaag, Siegfried* mailto [University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE) > Identités, Politiques, Sociétés, Espaces (IPSE) >]
* These authors have contributed equally to this work.
2-Jun-2018
Synthese
Kluwer Academic Publishers
Yes
International
0039-7857
Dordrecht
The Netherlands
[en] Laws of nature Best systems account Humeanism Modality
[en] Humean reductionism about laws of nature appears to leave a central aspect of scientific practice unmotivated: If the world’s fundamental structure is exhausted by the actual distribution of non-modal properties and the laws of nature are merely efficient summaries of this distribution, then why does science posit laws that cover a wide range of non-actual circumstances? In this paper, we develop a new version of the Humean best systems account of laws based on the idea that laws need to organize information in a way that maximizes their cognitive usefulness for creature like us. We argue that this account motivates scientific practice because the laws’ applicability to non-actual circumstances falls right out of their cognitive usefulness.
Researchers ; Students
http://hdl.handle.net/10993/35821
10.1007/s11229-018-1829-1
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11229-018-1829-1

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