[lit-ideas] The principle of the university of nature

  • From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:33:24 -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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