Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T06:35:56.526Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Are Conservation Laws Metaphysically Necessary?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Johanna Wolff
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Are laws of nature necessary, and if so, are all laws of nature necessary in the same way? This question has played an important role in recent discussion of laws of nature. I argue that not all laws of nature are necessary in the same way: conservation laws are perhaps to be regarded as metaphysically necessary. This sheds light on both the modal character of conservation laws and the relationship between different varieties of necessity.

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 898 - 906
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brading, Katherine. 2002. “Which Symmetry? Noether, Weyl, and Conservation of Electric Charge.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 33:3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brading, Katherine, and Brown, Harvey. 2003. “Symmetries and Noether’s Theorems.” In Brading and Castellani 2003, 89–109.Google Scholar
Brading, Katherine, and Castellani, Elena, eds. 2003. Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Harvey, and Holland, Peter. 2004. “Dynamical vs. Variational Symmetries: Understanding Noether’s First Theorem.” Molecular Physics 102 (11–12): 1133–39.Google Scholar
Fine, Kit. 1994. “Essence and Modality.” Philosophical Perspectives 8:1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Kit 2002. “The Varieties of Necessity.” In Conceivability and Possibility, ed. Gendler, Tamar and Hawthorne, John, 253–81. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Lange, Marc. 2009. Laws and Lawmakers—Science, Metaphysics, and the Laws of Nature. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Christopher A. 2003. “On Continuous Symmetries and the Foundations of Modern Physics.” In Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections, ed. Brading, Katherine and Castellani, Elena, 29–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noether, Emmy. 1918. “Invariante Variationsprobleme.” Nachr. d. König. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. zu Göttingen, Math.-phys. Klasse 2:235–57.Google Scholar
Tavel, M. A. 1971. “Noethers Theorem.” Transport Theory and Statistical Physics 1:183–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar