No Work for a Theory of Universals

Abstract

The prospect of avoiding commitment to perfectly natural properties while holding on to a Lewisian analysis of lawhood is appealing to many philosophers. This chapter explores different ways one might pursue this project, and argues that a best system account that adopts Language-Salience and Metrics-Rigidity, along the lines suggested by Loewer and Hoefer, has the most hope of success. On this version of the Best System account of lawhood, the best system is formulated in the language of the candidate system that best balances simplicity, informativeness, and salience, where metrics of simplicity, informativeness, salience, and balance are the current, actual metrics. The chapter explores the possibility of modifying other Lewisian analyses and suggests that the version of the Best System account developed in the chapter can be used to specify a set of "surrogate properties" that can be substituted for perfectly natural properties in other Lewisian analyses.

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