Wolfgang Schwarz

Chen on our access to the physical laws

Humean accounts of physical laws seem to have an advantage when it comes to explaining our epistemic access to the laws: if the laws are nothing over and above the Humean mosaic, it's no big mystery how observing the mosaic can provide information about the laws. If, by contrast, the laws are non-Humean whatnots, it's unclear how we could get from observations of the mosaic to knowledge of the laws. This line of thought is developed, for example, in Earman and Roberts (2005). Chen (2023) (as well as Chen (2024)) argues that it rests on a mistake. Eddy suggests that Primitivists about physical laws have no more trouble explaining our epistemic access than friends of the Best-System Analysis.

Abilities despite phobias?

A common assumption in discussions of abilities is that phobias restrict an agent's abilities. Arachnophobics, for example, can't pick up spiders. I wonder if this is true, if we're talking about the pure 'can' of ability.

The problem is that 'can' judgements (and 'ability' judgements) are often sensitive to relevant preferences or norms: I might say that I can't come to a meeting (or that I'm not able to come) because I have to pick up my kids from school. This is what I'd call an impure use of 'can'. I don't actually lack the ability to come to the meeting. It's just that doing so would come at too high a cost. Perhaps arachnophobia similarly associates a high cost with picking up spiders.