Journal | JoLMA
Monographic journal issue | 1 | 1 | 2020
Research Article | Laws, Exceptions and Dispositions
Laws, Exceptions and Dispositions
Abstract
Can laws of nature be universal regularities and nevertheless have exceptions? Several answers to this question, in particular the thesis that there are no laws outside of fundamental physics, are examined and rejected. It is suggested that one can account for exceptions by conceiving of laws as strictly universal determination relations between (instances of) properties. When a natural property is instantiated, laws of nature give rise to other, typically dispositional properties. In exceptional situations, such properties manifest themselves either in an unusual way or not at all.
Published June 30, 2020 | Language: en
Keywords Disposition • Ceteris paribus • Exception • Law of nature • Proviso
Copyright © 2020 Max Kistler. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/Jolma//2020/01/005
