Metaphysics of Science by Markus Schrenk

Author:Markus Schrenk [Markus Schrenk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317273042
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

4.6 Laws as unanalysably fundamental

There is a philosophical position that takes laws of nature to be ontological primitives. Accordingly, laws cannot be reduced to anything that is more fundamental. John W. Carroll (Carroll 1994) and Tim Maudlin (Maudlin 2007: 5–49) endorse such a view. This seems, at first glance, to be a lazy option, especially in comparison to the intense labour that has gone into the attempts sketched in Sections 4.2–4.5. Maudlin says to his defence:

Taking laws as primitive may appear to be simple surrender in the face of a philosophical puzzle. But every account must have primitives. The account must be judged on the clarity of the inferences that the primitives warrant and on the degree of systematization they reveal among our pre-analytic inferences.

(Maudlin 2007: 15)

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