Causation and Laws of Nature

Front Cover
H. Sankey
Springer Science & Business Media, Dec 31, 1999 - Law - 358 pages
Causation and Laws of Nature is a collection of articles which represents current research on the metaphysics of causation and laws of nature, mostly by authors working in or active in the Australasian region. The book provides an overview of current work on the theory of causation, including counterfactual, singularist, nomological and causal process approaches. It also covers work on the nature of laws of nature, with special emphasis on the scientific essentialist theory that laws of nature are, at base, the fundamental dispositions or capacities of natural kinds of things. Because the book represents a good cross-section of authors currently working on these themes in the Australasian region, it conveys something of the interest and excitement of an active philosophical debate between advocates of several different research programmes in the area.
 

Contents

BRIAN ELLIS Causal Powers and Laws of Nature
19
JOHN BIGELOW Scientific Ellisianism
45
BRIAN ELLIS Bigelows Worries About Scientific Essentialism
61
MARTIN LECKEY The Naturalness Theory of Laws
77
Comment
83
ALAN BAKER Are the Laws of Nature Deductively Closed?
111
CATHY LEGG Real Law in Peirces Pragmaticism
125
DAVID LEWIS Finkish Dispositions
143
Theories of Causation
175
F JOHN CLENDINNEN Causal Dependence and Laws
187
COLLIER Causation is the Transfer of Information
215
Causation and Causal Processes
247
KEVIN B KORB Probabilistic Causal Structure
265
PETER MENZIESIntrinsic versus Extrinsic Conceptions of Causation
313
HUW PRICEThe Role of History in Microphysics
331
INDEX 353

Finkish Dispositions
157

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