Origins of Scientific “Law”

Chapters in this book

1. I-X I
2. I. Introduction
3. Laws of Nature – Laws of Science 3
4. II. Philosophical Views
5. The Neo-Humean Perspective: Laws as Regularities 67
6. The Necessitarian Perspective: Laws as Natural Entailments 92
7. The Skeptical Perspective: Science without Laws of Nature 120
8. The Middle Ground: Resiliency and Laws in the Web of Belief 139
9. The New Aspect: Symmetries as Meta-Laws 157
10. III. Scientific Views
11. Laws and Experiment 191
12. Laws and Theories: Generality versus Coherence 208
13. Laws and Chaos 227
14. Algorithmic Compressibility, Fundamental and Phenomenological Laws 248
15. The Distinctness of Biology 268
16. IV. Historical Views
17. Origins of Scientific “Law” 289
18. Algamation of a Concept: Laws of Nature in the New Sciences 316
19. Theory Bound and Unbound: Superstrings and Experiments 369
20. List of Contributors 409
21. Subject Index 411
22. Names Index 418