A Objetividade das Leis da Natureza na Tradição Empirista: de Hume a David Lewis

Autores

  • Túlio Roberto Xavier de Aguiar UFMG

Palavras-chave:

melhor sistema, simplicidade, superveniência, graus de contingência, David Lewis, Best system, simplicity, supervenience, degree of contingency

Resumo

Neste artigo, eu examino as soluções de cunho empirista para explicar a noção de Leis da Natureza. O que unifica tais teorias é a recusa em admitir fatos e propriedades modais como pertencendo à realidade objetiva. Eu procuro mostrar que tal recusa acarreta inevitavelmente a perda da possibilidade de identificar a objetividade das leis como sendo inteiramente independente do nosso aparato cognitivo. Apesar disso, eu argumento que a versão sistêmico-empirista das leis da natureza de fato tem um grande apelo do ponto de vista epistemológico e permite explicar a metafísica dos graus de contingência como distância dedutiva do chamado melhor sistema -- aquele com o melhor equilíbrio entre força e simplicidade. Eu parto da teoria de David Lewis e sigo os desenvolvimentos desta por Barry Loewer para retirar as conclusões acima.


Abstract

In this article I examine the empiricist slant solutions to explain the notion of laws of nature. What unifies these theories is the refusal to admit facts and modal properties as belonging to objective reality. I try to show that such refusal inevitably entails the loss of the ability to identify objectivity of laws as being entirely independent of our cognitive apparatus. Nevertheless, I argue that the systemic-empiricist version of the laws of nature indeed has great appeal from an epistemological perspective and helps explain the metaphysics of the degree of contingency away as the deductive system called best - the one with the best balance between strength and simplicity. I labor the theory of David Lewis and I follow the developments of this by Barry Loewer to draw the conclusions above.

Recebido em 06/2013

Aprovado em 02/2014

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Publicado

2015-04-04