3.8 Article

Grounding, scientific explanation, and Humean laws

Journal

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
Volume 164, Issue 1, Pages 255-261

Publisher

SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11098-012-0001-x

Keywords

Scientific explanation; Laws of nature; Hume; Lewis; Grounding; Hempel

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It has often been argued that Humean accounts of natural law cannot account for the role played by laws in scientific explanations. Loewer (Philosophical Studies 2012) has offered a new reply to this argument on behalf of Humean accounts-a reply that distinguishes between grounding (which Loewer portrays as underwriting a kind of metaphysical explanation) and scientific explanation. I will argue that Loewer's reply fails because it cannot accommodate the relation between metaphysical and scientific explanation. This relation also resolves a puzzle about scientific explanation that Hempel and Oppenheim (Philosophy of Science 15:135-75, 1948) encountered.

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