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Full Idea
One way to get the conclusion that laws are necessary is to combine my view of properties with the view of Armstrong, Dretske and Tooley, that laws are, or assert, relations between properties.
Gist of Idea
We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws
Source
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], I)
Book Ref
Shoemaker,Sydney: 'Identity, Cause and Mind' [OUP 2003], p.409
A Reaction
This is interesting, because Armstrong in particular wants the necessity to arise from relations between properties as universals, but if we define properties causally, and make them necessary, we might get the same result without universals.
| 8379 | In causal laws, 'events' must recur, so they have to be universals, not particulars [Russell] |
| 16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
| 9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |
| 17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
| 15876 | Maybe laws of nature are just relations between properties? [Harré] |
| 15093 | We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws [Shoemaker] |
| 15237 | Originally Humeans based lawlike statements on pure qualities, without particulars [Harré/Madden] |
| 14639 | Individuals enter into laws only through their general qualities and relations [McMichael] |
| 9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
| 9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
| 9473 | Laws cannot offer unified explanations if they don't involve universals [Bird] |
| 9484 | If the universals for laws must be instantiated, a vanishing particular could destroy a law [Bird] |
| 19039 | The view that laws are grounded in substance plus external necessity doesn't suit dispositionalism [Vetter] |