A Formal Apology for Metaphysics

A Statistician's Apology

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Apology

Humean metaphysics versus a metaphysics of powers

The paper considers the opposition between Humean metaphysics and the metaphysics of powers, focusing on laws, probabilities and causation. It argues that within Humean metaphysics, everything is a matter of contingency. Consequently, there is no deep metaphysical difference between a deterministic world and a world in which only probabilistic laws hold. This position is contrasted with the fou...

A mathematician's apology

An Apology