What is a Law of Nature?

Cambridge Philosophy Classics

by D.M. Armstrong

This is a study of a crucial and controversial topic in metaphysics and the philosophy of science: the status of the laws of nature. D. M. Armstrong works out clearly and in comprehensive detail a largely original view that laws are relations between properties or universals. The theory is continuous with the views on universals and more generally with the scientific realism that Professor Armstrong has advanced in earlier publications. He begins here by mounting an attack on the orthodox and sceptical view deriving from Hume that laws assert no more than a regularity of coincidence between instances of properties. In doing so he presents what may become the definitive statement of the case against this position. Professor Armstrong then goes on to establish his own theory in a systematic manner defending it against the most likely objections, and extending both it and the related theory of universals to cover functional and statistical laws. This treatment of the subject is refreshingly concise and vivid: it will both stimulate vigorous professional debate and make an excellent student text.

Genres: Philosophy, Science, Metaphysics

180 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 1983

About the author

David Malet Armstrong (born 8 July 1926), often D. M. Armstrong, is an Australian philosopher. He is well-known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functionalist theory of the mind, an externalist epistemology, and a necessitarian conception of the laws of nature. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic. There was a lot in here that I found quite interesting. It's nice to see a governing theory so well worked out (even if the necessitation relation is still a bit mysterious). Armstrong's higher-order laws (especially those that ground counterfactuals for uninstantiated laws) were particularly interesting.