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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.
| 15091 | Restrict 'logical truth' to formal logic, rather than including analytic and metaphysical truths [Shoemaker] |
| 15093 | We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws [Shoemaker] |
| 15096 | 'Grue' only has causal features because of its relation to green [Shoemaker] |
| 15095 | A property's causal features are essential, and only they fix its identity [Shoemaker] |
| 15097 | I claim that a property has its causal features in all possible worlds [Shoemaker] |
| 15094 | I now deny that properties are cluster of powers, and take causal properties as basic [Shoemaker] |
| 15099 | If something is possible, but not nomologically possible, we need metaphysical possibility [Shoemaker] |
| 15098 | Empirical evidence shows that imagining a phenomenon can show it is possible [Shoemaker] |
| 15100 | Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence [Shoemaker] |
| 15101 | Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker] |