The Contingent Reality of Natural Necessity
The Contingent Reality of Natural Necessity
Some think the regularity theory of causation must be true. They argue that the regularity of the world must in the end be a ‘brute’ fact, something for which there is no reason or explanation. This chapter argues that the sense in which regularity must be ‘brute’ does not support the regularity theory of causation. This is fortunate, since to say that regularity is all there is to causation is to say that the regularity of the world is — aeon after aeon — a continuous fluke or chance matter, which is crazy.
Keywords: causation, regularity theory, natural necessity, brute fact, laws of nature
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