The Metaphysics Within Physics - Tim Maudlin

Abstract

This is a slim, lively volume, packed with intriguing argument, a collation of thematically unified essays composed over a number of years. It will, I think, be read by many with interest, profit and surprise, in gently varying proportion. The general theme is a call for metaphysical discussions to engage more realistically and more substantively with what our fundamental physical theories have to say about what the world is like; the doctrine – or hypothesis? – of Humean supervenience is one metaphysical position which particularly comes in for stick. The general theme is certainly a timely one (vide the recent book by Ladyman and Ross), as is the more specific target of Humean supervenience (e.g., recent papers by Jeremy Butterfield). The first chapter, ‘Fundamental Laws of Temporal Evolution’, argues for primitivism about laws of nature. Following the practice of physics, we should not seek to explain fundamental dynamical laws in terms of anything else. There follows a straightforward and appealing proposal for how counterfactuals should then be understood on the back of laws. Ch. 5 picks up this theme again and argues that rather than analysing causation in terms of counterfactuals (or vice versa), both should be explained in terms of laws.