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Is naturalness natural?

Is naturalness natural?
Is naturalness natural?
The perfectly natural properties and relations are special—they are all and only those that "carve nature at its joints." They act as reference magnets, form a minimal supervenience base, figure in fundamental physics and in the laws of nature, and never divide duplicates within or between worlds. If the perfectly natural properties are the (metaphysically) important ones, we should expect being a perfectly natural property to itself be one of the (perfectly) natural properties. This paper argues that being a perfectly natural property is not a very natural property, and examines the consequences.
2152-1123
381-396
Thompson, Naomi
b382645c-7f77-428b-871a-8552466ec04d
Thompson, Naomi
b382645c-7f77-428b-871a-8552466ec04d

Thompson, Naomi (2016) Is naturalness natural? American Philosophical Quarterly, 53 (4), 381-396.

Record type: Article

Abstract

The perfectly natural properties and relations are special—they are all and only those that "carve nature at its joints." They act as reference magnets, form a minimal supervenience base, figure in fundamental physics and in the laws of nature, and never divide duplicates within or between worlds. If the perfectly natural properties are the (metaphysically) important ones, we should expect being a perfectly natural property to itself be one of the (perfectly) natural properties. This paper argues that being a perfectly natural property is not a very natural property, and examines the consequences.

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Accepted/In Press date: 16 October 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: October 2016
Published date: October 2016
Organisations: Philosophy

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 407326
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/407326
ISSN: 2152-1123
PURE UUID: 9e7e1d7d-25c4-42d5-b5b1-d3b9b4d75d4c
ORCID for Naomi Thompson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8605-6731

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Date deposited: 01 Apr 2017 01:15
Last modified: 26 Jun 2024 01:48

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