Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T23:20:19.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Structuralism and the New Way of Worlds: A Sellarsian Argument for Necessitarianism about Laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Zanja Yudell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents and argues for modal structuralism, which is loosely derived from a position described by Wilfrid Sellars. Modal structuralism holds that a fundamental property is identified by the role it plays in the structure of possibilities. It implies necessitarianism about laws, which holds that at least some laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. The argument for these positions derives from the following assumptions: the principle of the identity of indiscernible properties and a modest antiquidditism. These assumptions are weaker than those of causal structuralism, which is a closely related view.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 678 - 695
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.)

Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank Andrea Borghini, Joe Hwang, Neil Williams, and some anonymous referees for providing comments on this article.

References

Armstrong, David. M. 1983. What Is a Law of Nature? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bird, Alexander. 2004. “Strong Necessitarianism: The Nomological Identity of Possible Worlds.” Ratio 17 (3): 256–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, Alexander. 2005. “The Dispositionalist Conception of Laws.” Foundations of Science 10:353–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, Alexander. 2007. Nature’s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Robert. 2000. “Against Quidditism.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (1): 87–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elder, Crawford L. 1994. “Laws, Natures and Contingent Necessities.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (3): 649–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, Brian. 2001. Scientific Essentialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ellis, Brian, and Lierse, Caroline. 1994. “Dispositional Essentialism.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (1): 27–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, Steven, and Redhead, Michael. 1988. “Quantum Physics and the Identity of Indiscernibles.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (2): 233–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frisch, Mathias. 2005. Inconsistency, Asymmetry, and Non-locality: A Philosophical Investigation of Classical Electrodynamics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harré, Rom, and Madden, Edward H.. 1974. Causal Powers. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, John. 2001. “Causal Structuralism.” Philosophical Perspectives 15:361–78.Google Scholar
Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ladyman, James, and Ross, David. 2007. Everything Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David. 2009. “Ramseyan Humility.” In Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, ed. Braddon-Mitchell, David and Nola, Robert, 203–22. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Margenau, Henry. 1944. “The Exclusion Principle and Its Philosophical Importance.” Philosophy of Science 11 (4): 187–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 1975. “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”. In Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, 215–71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, Willard V. 1976. “Grades of Discriminability.” Journal of Philosophy 73 (5): 113–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid. 1948. “Concepts as Involving Laws and Inconceivable without Them.” Philosophy of Science 15 (4): 287–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaffer, Jonathan. 2005. “Quiddistic Knowledge.” Philosophical Studies 123:1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, Sydney. 1980. “Causality and Properties.” In Identity, Cause and Mind, 206–34. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, Sydney. 1998. “Causal and Metaphysical Necessity.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79:59–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swoyer, Chris. 1982. “The Nature of Natural Laws.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 60 (3): 203–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tooley, Michael. 1977. “The Nature of Laws.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7:667–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 1989. Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar