Nature's Principles

• Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
• Other Authors: Faye, Jan (Editor), Needham, Paul (Editor), Scheffler, Uwe (Editor), Urchs, Max (Editor)
• Format: Electronic eBook
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands, 2005.
• Series: Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science ; 4
• Subjects: Philosophy.; Philosophy and science.; Philosophy of nature.; Philosophy of Science.; Philosophy of Nature.

One of the most basic problems in the philosophy of science involves determining the extent to which nature is governed by laws. This volume presents a wide-ranging overview of the contemporary debate and includes some of its foremost participants. It begins with an extensive introduction describing...

Table of Contents:

• Why Are (Most) Laws of Nature Mathematical?
• How Nature Makes Sense
• Nancy Cartwright and Leszek Nowak on Scientific Laws and Scientific Explanation
• The Explanatory Virtues of Probabilistic Causal Laws
• The Nature of Natural Laws
• How the Ceteris Paribus Laws of Physics Lie
• Necessary Laws
• Laws of Nature — A Skeptical View
• The Laws’ Properties
• Laws of Nature Versus System Laws
• Psychologism, Universality and the Use of Logic.