If Newtonian physics is necessitarian, the it is not the necessity that one finds in the relationship between two sides of an equation expressing a law of nature, for no concrete material thing is entirely determined in its movement by the forces encompassed in a single natural law. Rather, each concrete movement is the result of a composite of forces, each of which is describeable by a law.
In this way, each law is an abstraction: none of them describes entirely on its own the process that actually transpires in nature. And in this way, no law on its own says what must happen. Rather, each law tells part of the story of why what does occur happened in the way that it did.
That is, laws describe the natural influences on movement rather than necessities of nature. Or rather, the necessity that laws do convey is of how things necessarily influence each other. But since none of these influences excludes other influences, it follows that none of the laws describing any one (or partial) of these influences conveys what necessarily results from all of these influences. In this way, none of these laws excludes other influences upon what actually happens.
If we combine the above point about openness to other influences w/ Polyani's stratified notion of human action in "Emergence," in The Tacit Dimension, then we perhaps find a way out of determinism.
In this way, each law is an abstraction: none of them describes entirely on its own the process that actually transpires in nature. And in this way, no law on its own says what must happen. Rather, each law tells part of the story of why what does occur happened in the way that it did.
That is, laws describe the natural influences on movement rather than necessities of nature. Or rather, the necessity that laws do convey is of how things necessarily influence each other. But since none of these influences excludes other influences, it follows that none of the laws describing any one (or partial) of these influences conveys what necessarily results from all of these influences. In this way, none of these laws excludes other influences upon what actually happens.
If we combine the above point about openness to other influences w/ Polyani's stratified notion of human action in "Emergence," in The Tacit Dimension, then we perhaps find a way out of determinism.
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