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    Necessitarian accounts (Armstrong, Dretske, Tooley) hold ... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The laws of nature are those generalisations in the collection of truths that best satisfy the three measures of strength, simplicity, and fit.

    Necessitarian accounts (Armstrong, Dretske, Tooley) hold that laws involve genuine nomic necessity between universals, not mere regularities.

    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Mere regularities cannot explain why laws support counterfactuals; only genuine necessities ground counterfactual conditionals.
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    • 2.If laws were just regularities, we could not distinguish laws from accidental uniformities like 'all gold spheres weigh less than 1000kg'.
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    • 3.Universal properties have intrinsic causal powers; necessity between universals explains why instances must instantiate lawful relations.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Nomic necessity between universals is metaphysically obscure; it's unclear how universals can necessitate rather than merely correlate.
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    • 2.Regularist accounts sufficiently explain laws via counterfactual truth-conditions without positing occult metaphysical necessities.
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    • 3.The law-accident distinction can be drawn via best-systems approaches without invoking intrinsic nomic necessity in nature itself.
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    Causation1 linkedModality & Possibility1 linked

    Related

    If laws were just regularities, we could not distinguish laws from accidental un...Mere regularities cannot explain why laws support counterfactuals; only genuine ...Nomic necessity between universals is metaphysically obscure; it's unclear how u...Regularist accounts sufficiently explain laws via counterfactual truth-condition...
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    The law-accident distinction can be drawn via best-systems approaches without in...The laws of nature are those generalisations in the collection of truths that be...Universal properties have intrinsic causal powers; necessity between universals ...

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