Laws of Nature

Organized by the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP), LMU München, in cooperation with the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS), TU München.

According to the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis conception of laws of nature, the laws supervene on the "Humean mosaic" of non-modal particular matters of fact: the laws are the axioms of the deductive system that best combines simplicity and strength. This workshop explores recent developments in Best-System-accounts of laws.

Is the notion of a "best system" an essentially pragmatic notion?
Should we think of science as providing us with a single best system, that has the fundamental laws of physics as its axioms or as providing us with multiple best systems, corresponding to different domains and scientific disciplines?
Are Best-System-accounts, and Humean accounts of laws more generally, metaphysically too"‘thin" to capture the explanatory role of laws?

Date and Location

Monday, 17 December 2012

Technische Universität München
Arcisstr. 21
Room 1229

Speakers

Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham)
Craig Callender (University of California, San Diego)
Michael Esfeld (Université de Lausanne)
Mathias Frisch (University of Maryland, College Park)
Carl Hoefer (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Markus Schrenk (Universität Köln)

Program

Time	Speaker	Title
09:00 – 09:15		Welcome
09:30 – 10:15	Helen Beebee	Ramsey vs. Lewis on conditionals and causation
10:30 – 11:30	Carl Hoefer	Pragmatic Humeanism, Consistency and the Principal Principle
11:45 – 12:45	Mathias Frisch	Why Physics Can't Explain Everything
12:45 – 14:00		Lunch
14:00 – 15:00	Michael Esfeld	Humeanism and Dispositionalism in Quantum Physics
15:15 – 16:15	Markus Schrenk	Trouble with Properties for Better Best Systems
16:30 – 17:30	Craig Callender	New Developments of the Systems Theory of Laws
17:30 – 18:00		Discussion