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Quidditism and contingent laws

Quidditism and contingent laws
Quidditism and contingent laws
According to contingentism, laws of nature hold contingently. An objection to contingentism is that it implies quidditism, and therefore inherits its implausible consequences. This paper argues that this objection is misguided. Understood one way, quidditism is not an implication of contingentism, hence even if it has implausible consequences, these are not relevant to contingentism. Understood another way, quidditism is implied by contingentism, but it is less clear if this version of quidditism has the same implausible consequences. Whatever the merits of contingentism, the argument from anti-quidditism is not successful in showing that it is false.
qudditism, laws of nature
286-290
Baysan, Umut
69cc8c93-08a0-4b88-8192-eb5a22fa82e3
Baysan, Umut
69cc8c93-08a0-4b88-8192-eb5a22fa82e3

Baysan, Umut (2019) Quidditism and contingent laws. Thought, 8 (4), 286-290. (doi:10.1002/tht3.434).

Record type: Article

Abstract

According to contingentism, laws of nature hold contingently. An objection to contingentism is that it implies quidditism, and therefore inherits its implausible consequences. This paper argues that this objection is misguided. Understood one way, quidditism is not an implication of contingentism, hence even if it has implausible consequences, these are not relevant to contingentism. Understood another way, quidditism is implied by contingentism, but it is less clear if this version of quidditism has the same implausible consequences. Whatever the merits of contingentism, the argument from anti-quidditism is not successful in showing that it is false.

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More information

Published date: 10 October 2019
Keywords: qudditism, laws of nature

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 505303
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/505303
PURE UUID: a00299bc-3282-40cf-9664-119f8c5bd1bf
ORCID for Umut Baysan: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1975-0739

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Date deposited: 06 Oct 2025 16:49
Last modified: 07 Oct 2025 02:17

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Author: Umut Baysan ORCID iD

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