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This book subjects the traditional concept of law of nature to critical examination.
There are two kinds of reasons that invite this reexamination, one deriving from philosophical concerns over the traditional concept, the other motivated by theoretical and practical changes in science. One of the philosophical worries is that the idiom of law of nature, especially when combined with the notion of laws 'governing' individual events and processes, is no longer as intelligible as it used to be in the theistic context in which the formulation of laws became central to science. The traditional concept is also challenged in various ways by contemporary scientific theories such as quantum mechanics, chaos theory and the general theory of relativity. It is no longer clear that there are any universal laws, laws do not always guarantee predictability, and the border between physical and mathematical considerations is constantly shifting. The most difficult challenge, perhaps, isto come up with a scientific explanation of the origin of laws.
Wrestling with these intriguing problems, the papers in this volume broaden both our understanding of the natural order and our desiderata of scientific explanation.
List of contents
Chapter 1. (Introduction) "Why Rethinking is required"(Yemima Ben-Menahem).- Chapter 2. "On Two Slights to Noether's Theorem" (J. Brian Pitts).- Chapter 3. "How To Make the World Safe for Autonomy, or: How to Fodor-Kitcher an Albert-Loewer"(Marc Lange).- Chapter 4. "Models as Ersatz Law."(Arnon Levy).- Chapter 5. TBA (Orly Shenker).- Chapter 6. "Laws of Nature as Epistemic Infrastructure, Not as Metaphysical Superstructure" (Richard Healey).- Chapter 7. "Making Modality Safe for Empiricists" (John D. Norton).- Chapter 8. "Wheeler's Law Without Law and other Forms of Lawlessness" (Yemima Ben-Menahem).- Chapter 9. "Ratbag Idealism"(Gordon Belot).- Chapter 10. "Relational Mechanics and a Large Kantian Component of Laws of Nature"(Sheldin Goldstein and Nino Zanghì).- Chapter 11. "Minimal Primitivism About Laws of Nature" (Sheldon Goldstein and Eddy Chen).
About the author
Yemima Ben-Menahem of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is a philosopher of science, specializing in the philosophy of physics. She is author of Conventionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Causation in Science (Princeton University Press, 2018. She edited Hilary Putnam (Cambridge University Press (2005) and coedited (with Meir Hemmo) Probability in Physics (Springer, 2012)
