BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Grails iCalendar plugin//NONSGML Grails iCalendar plugin//EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260605T013708Z DTSTART;TZID=Australia/Melbourne:20161028T100000 DTEND;TZID=Australia/Melbourne:20161028T113000 SUMMARY:Natural Laws UID:20260606T214229Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-bd7db559-gt5qm TZID:Australia/Melbourne LOCATION:Monash University\, Clayton\, Australia\, 3800 DESCRIPTION:

Abstract:

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In this paper\, we describe an internally coherent world-view\, within which there are certain things that deserve the name of &lsquo\;laws of nature&rsquo\; even though they fail to fit the things that philosophers have hitherto said about laws of nature.

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In particular\, many philosophers have assumed that laws of nature are exceptionless regularities. And that entails that the very idea of a &lsquo\;miracle&rsquo\;\, as an &lsquo\;exception to the laws of nature&rsquo\;\, is internally incoherent. Our description of laws of nature\, by contrast\, makes it a coherent possibility that there could be exceptions to the laws of nature.

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Laws of nature are\, at one level\, contingent\; and yet they also manifestly possess a kind of necessity that is aptly called &lsquo\;natural necessity&rsquo\;. We analyse this &lsquo\;natural necessity&rsquo\; as a species of &lsquo\;conditional necessity&rsquo\;. It is a necessity that is conditional on what we call the essential natures of whatever the world does happen to contain.

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This part of our theory overlaps with a widely-held approach sometimes called the &lsquo\;strong theory of laws&rsquo\;. But to this we add a further claim\, namely: that these entailments are also conditional on an absence of interference from things that lie outside what we will call the &lsquo\;natural realm&rsquo\;. Our primary task in this paper is to elucidate this notion of &lsquo\;the natural realm&rsquo\;.

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