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Could the Laws of Nature Change?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Marc Lange
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Abstract

After reviewing several failed arguments that laws cannot change, I use the laws’ special relation to counterfactuals to show how temporary laws would have to differ from eternal but time-dependent laws. Then I argue that temporary laws are impossible and that neither Lewis's nor Armstrong's analyses of law nicely accounts for the laws’ immutability.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 69 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Many thanks to John Roberts and John Carroll for valuable comments on earlier drafts, as well as to several anonymous referees for their good suggestions.

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