What Price Changing Laws of Nature?

Sartenaer, Olivier;Guay, Alexandre;Humphreys, Paul
(2021) European Journal for Philosophy of Science — Vol. 11, n° 1 (2021), p. 12 (2021)

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  • Sartenaer, OlivierUCLouvain
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  • Guay, Alexandreorcid-logoUCLouvain
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  • Humphreys, Paul
    Author
Abstract
In this paper, we show that it is not a conceptual truth about laws of nature that they are immutable (though we are happy to leave it as an open empirical question whether they do actually change once in a while). In order to do so, we survey three popular accounts of lawhood—(Armstrong-style) necessitarianism, (Bird-style) dispositionalism and (Lewis-style) ‘best system analysis’—and expose the extent, as well as the philosophical cost, of the amendments that should be enforced in order to leave room for the possibility of changing laws.
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Sartenaer, O., Guay, A., & Humphreys, P. (2021). What Price Changing Laws of Nature? European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 11(1 (2021)), 12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-020-00327-4 (Original work published 2021)