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Full Idea
The principle of least action is not a causal law, but is what I call a 'global law', which describes the essence of the global kind, which every object in the universe necessarily instantiates.
Gist of Idea
Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence
Source
Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005])
Book Ref
-: 'Analysis 65.1 Jan 2005' [- 2005], p.91
A Reaction
As a fan of essentialism I find this persuasive. If I inherit part of my essence from being a mammal, I inherit other parts of my essence from being an object, and all objects would share that essence, so it would look like a 'law' for all objects.
| 17549 | Seven theories in science: mechanics, heat, electricity, quantum, particles, relativity, life [Heisenberg, by PG] |
| 8365 | Some laws are causal (Ohm's Law), but others are conceptual principles (conservation of energy) [Wright,GHv] |
| 17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
| 6616 | Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis] |
| 15862 | Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures [Harré] |
| 15870 | Are laws of nature about events, or types and universals, or dispositions, or all three? [Harré] |
| 15871 | Are laws about what has or might happen, or do they also cover all the possibilities? [Harré] |
| 3407 | Laws are either 'strict', or they involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause [Kim] |
| 6781 | There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird] |
| 16166 | Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N] |
| 9488 | Laws are either disposition regularities, or relations between properties [Bird] |