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Ideas of Bert Leuridan, by Text

[Belgian, fl. 2010, At the University of Ghent.]

2010 Can Mechanisms Replace Laws of Nature?
§1 p.2 Pragmatic laws allow prediction and explanation, to the extent that reality is stable
§1 p.3 Mechanisms can't explain on their own, as their models rest on pragmatic regularities
§1 p.3 We can show that regularities and pragmatic laws are more basic than mechanisms
§1 n1 p.2 A 'law of nature' is just a regularity, not some entity that causes the regularity
§2 p.5 Strict regularities are rarely discovered in life sciences
§3 p.7 Mechanisms are ontologically dependent on regularities
§3 p.8 Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence
§3 p.8 Biological functions are explained by disposition, or by causal role
§4 p.16 Generalisations must be invariant to explain anything
§5 p.18 Mechanisms must produce macro-level regularities, but that needs micro-level regularities
§5 p.22 There is nothing wrong with an infinite regress of mechanisms and regularities