No laws and (thin) powers in, no (governing) laws out

Abstract

Non-Humean accounts of the metaphysics of nature posit either laws or powers in order to account for natural necessity and world-order. We argue that such monistic views face fundamental problems. On the one hand, neo-Aristotelians cannot give unproblematic powerbased accounts of the functional laws among quantities offered by physical theories, as well as of the place of conservation laws and symmetries in a lawless ontology; in order to capture these characteristics, commitment to governing laws is indispensable. On the other hand, ontologies that entirely exclude some kind of power ascription to worldly entities (such as primitivism) face what we call the Governing Problem: such ontologies do not have the resources to give an adequate account of how laws play their governing role. We propose a novel dualist model, which, we argue, has the resources to solve the difficulties encountered by its two dominant competitors, without inheriting the problems of either view. According to the dualist model, both laws and powers (suitably conceived) are equally fundamental and irreducible to each other, and both are needed in order to give a satisfactory account of the nomological structure of the world. The dualist model constitutes thus a promising alternative to current monistic views in the metaphysics of science. 1 This tradition goes back to Descartes (1982). For a detailed account of this tradition and its relation to the earlier dominant Aristotelianism, see Psillos (2018). 2 We think, but will not argue for this now, that the origins of this dualist model can be found in Leibniz's mature (post 1680) work and especially in his critique of occasionalism, which posited laws but divested matter of all power. For some preliminary discussion, see Psillos (2018).

Affordances and their ontological core

“…As for Guarino's worry, Turvey (1992) emphasizes the vital role of laws of nature in his theorizing on affordances (ibid., Section 4). Therefore, dispositions and laws of nature may be complementary with each other in Turvey's dispositional approach to affordances (for more thoughts, see Kistler's (2020) and Ioannidis et al's (2021) philosophical arguments for dispositions and primitive lawhood in a governing account of laws of nature).…”

How to be a powers theorist about functional laws, conservation laws and symmetries

“…Alternatively, then, one might be tempted to say that conservation laws flow from the essence of the property of being a world like ours. But this "explanation" of conservation laws in terms of the property of being a world like ours strikes many as too ad hoc (Bird, 2007, 213;French, 2014;Ioannidis et al, 2020).…”

“…Bigelow et al (1992) advocate (something close to) the idea that conservation laws and symmetries hold in virtue of the property of being our universe. 3 Bird entertains this move, but ultimately deems it too ad hoc (2007,213), and others agree (French, 2014;Ioannidis et al, 2020). 4 Bird's preferred response is to deny that conservation laws and symmetries are objective features of the world itself, and to instead maintain that they are eliminable features of our representation of the world, which thus require no metaphysical explanation.…”

“…However, it has been objected that powers cannot explain functional laws (Vetter, 2012), conservation laws, or symmetries (Bigelow et al, 1992;Bird, 2007, chap. 10;Livanios, 2010;French, 2014;Ioannidis et al, 2020). Ioannidis et al (2020) take these problems to motivate a "dualist" anti-Humean ontology of powers and governing laws to account for nomic regularities.…”

“…10;Livanios, 2010;French, 2014;Ioannidis et al, 2020). Ioannidis et al (2020) take these problems to motivate a "dualist" anti-Humean ontology of powers and governing laws to account for nomic regularities. This strikes me as a serious overreaction, which, if taken seriously, is likely to do more damage than good to the powers metaphysic by rendering it a sheer ontological profligacy.…”