Abstract
A well-known objection to Humean accounts of laws (e.g. BSA, Lewis in Australas J Philos 61:343–377, 1983, Philosophical papers vol. II, Oxford University Press, 1986) charges them with circularity (Armstrong in What is a law of nature? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983, p. 102; Maudlin in The metaphysics within physics, Oxford University Press, New York, 2007, p. 172). While the view has it that particular facts explain the natural laws, natural laws are often relied upon in order to explain particular facts. Thus, the Humean is committed to circular explanations—or so goes the argument. In this paper, I review two ways of dealing with the circularity objection against Humean views of laws. Then, by introducing a contrastive treatment of explanations, I put forward a new one, which, if it does not end up dethroning its competitors, I am hoping is still worth exploring.
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Notes
I am assuming here that (at least some of) the particular facts in O and C are the same. Here is why I think this assumption does not beg the question against the Humean: if (as her account would have it) the whole mosaic of particular facts explains the laws of nature, then any subset of it (at least partially) explains the laws as well. In particular, whatever subset (fundamental) laws might in turn explain. Throughout the paper, I use the somewhat sloppy phrase particular facts to refer specifically to this relevant subset of the mosaic.
For the sake of simplicity, I will omit the mention ‘partly’ throughout the rest of the paper. This should have no bearing on the argument given that my opponents and I assume that circularity (or at least symmetry) is problematic even for partial explanation. Suppose it was not the case, then the circularity objection would have been dismissed on the basis that the explanations in question are merely partial. A complete list of the reasons that make a given generalization a law will simply never figure in a regular scientific explanation. Thus, the initial objection is based on the idea that partial explanations should not be circular (or symmetric).
I use prefixes like ‘S’ and ‘M’ after ‘explain’ to indicate the specific kind of explanation in question, e.g. scientific (S) and metaphysical (M). Thus, ‘p explainsS q’ is shorthand for ‘p scientifically explains q’ and, ‘p explainsM q’ abreviates ‘p metaphysically explains q’.
An underlying assumption of the discussion, which I will not question here, is that the circularity that we are worried about has to do with cases of symmetrical explanations. Once freed from the cases of symmetrical explanation one is also freed from the corresponding circularity. If one thinks that circularity requires reflexive explanation, they may apply transitivity of explanation to any case of symmetrical explanation and reach a reflexive case. As, whenever A explains B, and B explains A, the application of a transitivity principle for explanation will yield A explains A. There is a lot more to be said about the ways in which an explanation can legitimately be called ‘circular’, but I leave that inquiry for another time.
Lange (2013, 2018) does not question L in his responses. And a great deal of the ensuing discussion with Hicks and van Elswyk (2015) and Miller (2014) is carried out under the assumption that L is true. Although that discussion has its merits, I won’t be surveying much of it here. Rather, I will propose to consider the denial of L and see what it might imply.
Thanks to Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra for pushing me on this matter.
Thanks to an anonymous referee for raising this point.
It is very much alive too, according Emery (2019), who argues that law ascriptions metaphysically explain their instances. If she is right, Loewer’s distinction is of no help against the threat of circularity.
I am assuming here that the anti-Humean explains the non-fundamental laws with the fundamental ones, but one might decide to do things some other way.
To be more precise, following Marshall’s distinction, the anti-Humean would have fundamental law ascriptions unexplained, and use them for covering law explanations. On the other hand, her regularity statements would be explained by their instances, roughly in the way suggested by Fine (2012).
Thanks to Michael Townsen Hicks for the pointer.
There is some room here for a holistic Humean to deny C1. She can hold that [It is a natural law that all Fs are G] is grounded in the whole of occurrent facts, but deny that it or the whole of the occurrent facts is in turn grounded in Ga—Thanks to Jonathan Schaffer for pointing this out. Note, however, that such a holist would have to deny some highly plausible principles about grounding. If we take the whole of occurrent facts to be a conjunction or a list of individual facts, she will need to reject the view that a conjunction is grounded in its conjuncts or, accordingly, the view that a list is grounded in its members, on pain of circularity. In addition, she would still need to deny a principle of amalgamation for scientific explanation along the following lines: if (L explains p1, …, pn) & (L2 explains q1, …, qn) then (L & L2) explain (p1, …, pn & q1, …, qn). For such a principle would allow an amalgamation of all fundamental laws to explainS the whole of occurrent facts which would in turn explainM the laws.
Here and throughout, it is assumed that the law is a part of the top–down explanation, as is the case for instance in Hempel’s notorious DN-account of explanation. Instead, one might think that of laws play a background role in explanation, they merely allow certain particular facts to explain other particular facts. On such an understanding of the situation, it is not clear that the circularity objection arises to begin with. For the most part, it will hinge on what exactly one means by ‘allowing’ certain particular facts to explain other particular facts. A detailed examination of the circularity objection in light of such a secondary role for laws in explanation is needed, but it falls outside of the scope of this article.
‘[…]’ abbreviates ‘the fact that…’.
Note that the explanans’ contrast concerns whether Ga helps, not whether it is the case. For, had Ga not been the case, all Fs are G would not be an accident (as the contrast explanandum suggests) it would be false. Now, exactly how a given fact might help or fail to help make a given system best, or better, will depend on comparative considerations of simplicity and strength of the competing systems.’.
The fact and the foe (G and H here) are usually taken to be mutually exclusive.
I did not consider either the possibility that explanation might be both contrastive and non-contrastive. Such a view has recently been defended by Gijsbers (2018). It would be interesting to explore how my proposal might apply to such a framework, and I leave this task for future work.
Thanks to an anonymous referee for stressing this point.
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Acknowledgements
This paper benefitted from the feedback of audiences in Geneva, Princeton, and Atlanta (at the PSA meeting). I would also like to thank William Bausman, Fabrice Correia, Michal Hladky, Michael Stuart, Benjamin Neeser, Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Jonathan Schaffer, Michael Townsen Hicks, and Justin Zylstra for extensive comments on previous versions of this paper. This work was carried out (in part) while I was the recipient of a doc.mobility Swiss National Science Foundation grant for ‘Grounding and Explanations’ (P1GEP1_164867).
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The funding was provided by Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (CH).
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Carnino, P. Humean laws, circularity, and contrastivity. Synthese 198, 8713–8731 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02596-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02596-1