[...]... 3.5 The virtues of the meta-theoretic conception 3.6 Weighing the virtues and shortcomings of the meta-theoretic conception 4 An epistemological argument for the meta-theoretic conception of laws 4.1 The Discoverability Thesis, the Governing Thesis, and the first-order conception 4.2 The main argument 4.3 The objection from bad company 4.4 The objection from inference to the best explanation 4.5 The. .. like the choice between the two systems in the toy example One of those systems is just Kepler’s laws; the other is Kepler’s laws together with the equations of motions of all the planets The two are not incompatible with one another; in fact, the second one entails the first one Scientists might have to face the question of whether they have sufficient evidence to justify accepting the stronger theory,... being And if the fixed stars are the centers of similar systems, they will all be constructed according to a similar design and subject to the dominion of One, especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature as the light of the sun, and all the systems send light into all the others And so that the systems of the fixed stars will not fall in upon one another as a result of their gravity,... seasons, the cycles of life, the music of the spheres The universe conforms to regularities and uniformities that are aptly described as ‘harmonious.’ Perhaps this is the aspect of the law-governed world-picture that most often inspires awe; perhaps it is the one that leads people to suppose that this law-governed universe must have a divine lawgiver The second idea is that the development of the universe. .. generalizations that belong to the best system are the true general propositions that provide the best summary of what goes in the world; they give you the most information content by the most economical means The more harmonious the universe is, the more information content you can get from a comparatively simple set of true 8 the law-governed world-picture generalizations And when the universe is harmonious,... problems, but here the ¹³ Lewis (1986) the law-governed world-picture 9 competing virtues that must be balanced against one another are simplicity and closeness of fit with the data, rather than simplicity and information content.¹⁴ (And if two theories or deductive systems differ in their degree of fit with the data, then they could not both be true, so they are not both in the running for the title of ‘best... with theism, or with supernaturalism more generally It just means that what goes on in the natural world goes on according to laws, and not according to the wills of lawless beings If there are supernatural beings, then either they are themselves subject to the laws of nature whenever they attempt to intervene in the natural world, or else their influence on the natural world consists in having set up the. .. privileged by their comprehensiveness and their simplicity.⁹ Others think that while the concept of a law of nature does play an important role in modern science, the laws do not govern the universe, and the universe does not even conform to them; they are principles we use in constructing models of the world, rather than a feature of the world itself.¹⁰ So there are many ways in which philosophers... the universe, this would be nonsense: the stability and harmony of the solar system, the flatness and homogeneity of the universe, the constant and universal increase in entropy, the availability of large amounts of condensed matter for the formation of galaxies, planets, and heavy elements, are all among the general features of our universe that constitute the cosmic order—so they would be among the. .. Supervenience and the meta-theoretic conception 10.3 Alleged counterexamples to Humean Supervenience 10.4 Governing and non-trivial necessity 10.5 How the MAL lets us have it all 10.6 Humeanism? Non-Humeanism? 10.7 What is the significance of the idea of the law-governed universe? 10.8 Where in the world are the laws of nature? 371 379 Appendix The MAL in action: A few examples of scientific theories and their laws . What is the significance of the idea of the law-governed universe? 371 10.8 Where in the world are the laws of nature? 379 Appendix The MAL in action: A few examples of scientific theories and their. did not.³ But there is no controversy among them on the point of the passage just quoted: whether it arose in the thirteenth century or the seventeenth, the idea of a law-governed universe and. obeying laws. The laws of nature govern the universe in the sense that the universe cannot but conform to them; their requirements are not merely required but also inevitable; with them, resistance