Causal and Metaphysical Necessity

The Metaphysical Necessity of Natural Laws

In this paper I will defend the thesis that natural laws are metaphysically necessary, i.e. obtain in every possible world. Metaphysical necessity and possibility are the unrestricted modalities in the semantical interpretation of the modal logic system S5, which I adopt in this paper. I shall defend the following definition of a law of nature: (D 1) L is a natural law if and only if (i) L obta...

Chronological Ignorance: Time, Nonmonotonicity, Necessity and Causal Theories

Concerned with the problem of reasoning efficiently about change within a formal system, we identify the initiution problem. The solution to it which we offer, called the logic of chronological ignorance, combines temporal logic, nor-monotonic logic, and the modal logic of necessity. We identify a class of theories, called causal theories, which have elegant model-theoretic and complexity prope...

Michael Friedman Laws of Nature and Causal Necessity

This paper consider the necessity of causal laws of nature in relation to Kant’s works explicitly addressed to natural science (such as the Prolegomena and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science), and also to the second edition of the Transcendental Deduction and the Critique of the Power of Judgement.

Peacocke’s Epiphany: A Possible Problem for Semantic Approaches to Metaphysical Necessity

Physicalism, Pluralism and Causal Completeness: On the Metaphysical Foundations for Philosophy of Mind

The so-called Exclusion argument (Kim 2000; Papineau 2004) about mental causation applies one premise that is typically accepted without much discussion: the thesis of causal completeness of the physical domain (CCP). In part one I evaluate Papineau’s (2001) argument for the CCP. I argue that this argument is not satisfying and that it is incomplete. The rest of the thesis is dedicated to an al...