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Full Idea
I have noticed certain laws that God has so established in nature, and of which he has implanted such notions in our souls, that …we cannot doubt that they are exactly observed in everything that exists or occurs in the world.
Gist of Idea
God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us
Source
René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], pt 5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 15.5
Book Ref
Pasnau,Robert: 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' [OUP 2011], p.321
A Reaction
This is the view of laws which still seems to be with us (and needs extirpating) - that some outside agency imposes them on nature. I suspect that even Richard Feynman thought of laws like that, because he despised philosophy, and was thus naïve.
| 17004 | Nothing can break the binding laws of eternity [Lucretius] |
| 16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
| 15820 | A 'law of nature' is just something which is physically necessary [Chisholm] |
| 15867 | Laws describe abstract idealisations, not the actual mess of nature [Harré] |
| 15860 | We take it that only necessary happenings could be laws [Harré] |
| 15872 | Must laws of nature be universal, or could they be local? [Harré] |
| 15238 | Being lawlike seems to resist formal analysis, because there are always counter-examples [Harré/Madden] |
| 14349 | If there are no finks or antidotes at the fundamental level, the laws can't be ceteris paribus [Burge, by Corry] |
| 3525 | Strict laws make causation logically necessary [Maslin] |
| 3527 | Strict laws allow no exceptions and are part of a closed system [Maslin] |
| 14575 | A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 23706 | Hume's Dictum says no connections are necessary - so mass and spacetime warping could separate [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |