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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that If the laws of nature are necessary, the melting point of gold is necessary in the same way that gold's atomic number is necessary.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Laws of nature are contingent regularities, not metaphysical necessities—a position defended by Humeans like Lewis via Best System Analysis.
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    • 2.If laws are contingent, nomic consequences of a kind's essence inherit only nomological, not metaphysical, necessity.
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    • 3.Therefore, gold's melting point could differ in worlds with different laws, unlike its atomic number, which is fixed by constitution alone.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Atomic number is an intrinsic microstructural property of gold; melting point is a dispositional property fixed by gold's structure plus external laws.
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    • 2.Kripke's original necessity-of-identity arguments apply to constitutive essences, not to relational, law-dependent dispositional properties.
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    • 3.Conflating constitutive and nomic necessity illegitimately extends Kripkean essentialism beyond its intended and defensible scope.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.The melting point of gold is a nomic consequence of gold's essence.
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    • 2.If the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, all nomic consequences of a kind's essence are necessary properties of that kind.
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