[lit-ideas] The principle of the uniformity of nature
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:34:32 -0500
In a message dated 2/20/2015 2:02:16 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Popper's account throws some light on these issues. Rather than speak of
"causal laws" etc. [laws do not cause anything except in the presence of
initial conditions and may exist without actually causing anything], P
uses
the term "natural laws" to refer to laws of nature.
Oddly, and nicely coincidental, an author that J. L. Scherb quotes in his
essay, [translated, "Does the Nothing really noth?"] quotes from Friedman
who co-authored the below:
De Pierris, G. and Friedman, M., "Kant and Hume on Causality", The
Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/kant-hume-causality/>.
"[S]ince particular causal relations, for Kant, necessarily involve
causal
laws, all of our inferences from particular perceptions to universal
causal laws of nature are grounded in synthetic a priori principles of
pure
understanding providing a synthetic a priori conception of the unity and
UNIFORMITY OF NATURE in general. Hume was correct, therefore, that THE
PRINCIPLE
OF THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE governs all of our inductive causal
inferences;
and he was also correct that this principle is not and cannot be analytic
a priori."
Indeed, the keyword here would be what Grice calls "PHILOSOPHICAL
ESCHATOLOGY", a branch of metaphysics.
Cheers,
Speranza
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