Laws of nature and physical existents

Abstract

Nominalists, denying the reality of anything over and above concreta, are committed to a reductive account of any law of nature, explaining its necessity—the fact that it not only holds for all actual instances, but would hold for any additional ones—in, for example, epistemic terms (its likelihood/certainty of holding beyond the already observed instances). Nominalists argue that the world would be no different without irreducible modalities. ‘Modal realists’ often object that this parallels a common phenomenalist argument against believing in a mind‐independent external world. However, phenomenalism without translatability into sensory language is incoherent, though any such translation is impossible. The ‘as if philosophy is untenable as well. But it is quite possible to formulate inductive methodology's imperatives in non‐modal terms. Modal realism purports to give a reason against inductive scepticism, but does not go beyond saying that there is one.