Speaker Series: Nina Emery (Brown University)

The inaugural 2017 Balter Distinguished Lecture will welcome Nina Emery to present a paper as part of our annual Speaker Series.

Title: Laws and their instances

Abstract: I present an argument for the view that laws ground their instances. I then outline two important consequences that follow if we accept the conclusion of this argument. First, the claim that laws ground their instances threatens to undermine a prominent recent attempt to make sense of the explanatory power of Humean laws by distinguishing between metaphysical and scientific explanation. And second, the claim that laws ground their instances gives rise to a novel argument against the view—which is widely considered to be the standard or default view—that grounding relations are metaphysically necessary.