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2 ideas
5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Essentialists do not accept the standard position, which says necessity is a priori, and contingency is a posteriori. They have a radically new category: the necessary a posteriori. The laws of nature are, for example, both necessary and a posteriori. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: Based on Kripke. I'm cautious about this. Presumably God, who would know the essences, could therefore infer the laws a priori. The laws may follow of necessity from the essences, but the essences can't be known a posteriori to be necessary. |
5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The imaginability test of possibility confuses what is really or metaphysically possible with what is only epistemically possible. ..The latter is just what is possible for all we know. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) |