Laws of Nature as Theoretical Entities? A Critical Analysis of Michael Tooley’s Ideas

Abstract

This paper examines Michael Tooley’s ideas about laws of nature. His proposal is to treat them as theoretical entities in a sense commonly used in philosophy of science. He uses the so-called “ramsification” procedure in order to make sure that such entities exist in a given theory. However, due to the nature of logical methods used by Tooley, his results do not have much metaphysical significance. Properties and relations are here represented by (or even identified with) set-theoretical constructions from individuals and cannot be interpreted as universals without further strong assumptions.