91´«Ã½

Committee onÌýthe History and Philosophy of Science

40th Annual Conference

Workshop on Powers and Laws of Nature

August 18, 2026ÌýatÌý91´«Ã½

Schedule:

• According to the Powers BSA, the laws of nature are descriptions of the powers-generated history of the universe (i.e. the mosaic). Call a version of the PBSA ‘Simple’ if it takes those descriptions to be of the just actual mosaic, ‘Complex’ if the descriptions range over merely possible mosaics as well. Here I compare the relative merits of each, largely by revisiting the motivations that drive the PBSA in the first place. Not only is it not clear which is superior, the discussion unearths nearby accounts of laws that look like they too might be contenders.Ìý

• I examine the details of two extant potency best systems, my own (2017) and Kimpton-Nye's (2017). I argue that neither can account for the generation of new powers. This points to the need for a new potency best system that makes a crucial distinction between initial distributions of potencies and subsequent distributions of potencies. I tentatively propose such a view.

• Suppose that we are dispositionalists in the sense that we think dispositional properties underwrite the laws of nature. I explore whether, on such a picture, it is the laws themselves or rather the dispositional properties that help explain particular matters of fact. I suggest that, at least on some versions of dispositionalism, the laws are explanatorily inert.Ìý

• Physical particularism is the view that physical dependencies (e.g. causation, conservation and entanglement relations) are not explained (even partially) by falling under general law. Traditionally, this view has been motivated by a scepticism about the existence of suitably general laws. However, I will offer a dilemma suggesting that no general laws could possibly do the required work: on the first, 'causing' option, general laws explain alongside a subclass of the facts involved in the physical dependencies, thereby generating implausible causal asymmetries; on the second, 'constraining' option, general laws do the explaining all by themselves, thereby generating implausible necessary connections with those involved facts. But, physical particularism raises its own curiosities: why does the world appear to us to fit into such neat patterns if not because of general unifying laws? To understand how, I offer the analogy from Kemming Chen's 'Mandelbrot World': at its fundamental level, the world comprises a single, singular fact, involving a particular structure that grounds higher-level symmetries and generality. Such a fact, I suggest, deserves the title 'law', despite it's singularity. Hence, the particularism I defend is still Nomic.

• I argue that in the context of constraint-based laws, we can understand causal powers by appeal to a Humean dualist view of lawhood. In this picture, the world is ultimately governed by global constraints, but we extract local content from it by formulating conditional descriptions in terms of concrete entities and causal powers, where the entities and powers are arrived at jointly on the basis of the pragmatic usefulness of the patterns they encode.Ìý I suggest that this approach has an advantage over Humean dualist views in which causal powers are irreducible, because it is a better fit with important trends in modern physics.

Local Information:

Participants should fly in and out of DEN (Denver International Airport). There are convenient and direct buses () from the airport to the Pleasant Street stop, near the conference hotel, . The workshop will take place on CU's beautiful campus, in Hellems room N380.

For additional information, contact the principal organizer, Heather Demarest:Ìýheather.demarest@colorado.edu.
The Committee on the History and Philosophy of ScienceÌýat University of Colorado at Boulder is sponsored by the Philosophy Department and the Foster Endowment.