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Full Idea
It is plausible to suppose that the world is an instance of a natural kind, ..and what is naturally necessary in our world is what must be true in any world of the same natural kind.
Clarification
By 'world' philosophers mean the whole of this universe
Gist of Idea
The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws
Source
Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6)
Book Ref
Ellis,Brian: 'The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism' [Acumen 2002], p.120
A Reaction
This is putting an awful lot of metaphysical weight on the concept of a 'natural kind', so it had better be a secure one. If we accept that natural laws necessarily follow from essences, why shouldn't the whole of our world have an essence, as water does?
| 12375 | Whatever holds of a kind intrinsically holds of it necessarily [Aristotle] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 17053 | Gold's atomic number might not be 79, but if it is, could non-79 stuff be gold? [Kripke] |
| 4964 | 'Cats are animals' has turned out to be a necessary truth [Kripke] |
| 15292 | We can base the idea of a natural kind on the mechanisms that produce natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
| 11907 | Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not [Mackie,P] |