Resumen de Los compromisos ontológicos del realismo sin leyes
In order to assess the cogency of the claims of nomological realists, Stephen Mumford makes use of the criterion of ontological commitment put forward by Quine. Mumford contends that scientists do quantify over scientific laws, when they talk about the three laws of Newton, by instance. So, natural laws are conceived as substances, according to Quine´s criterion. Mumford says that it is a mistake, in view that a substance exists by itself and could exist even if there were no other being in the world, whereas a law cannot exist in a vacuum. We believe that Munford,s arguments are wrong. For one thing, the fact that a number of people make use of existential quantifiers is not a sufficient condition for thinking that they are making a hypostasis. Using quantifiers, unless they were irreducible, could be just a way of talking, as Quine himself admits. Furthermore, in Quine´s doctrine, the criterion of ontological commitment and the ontological relativity go hand in hand. Therefore, the criterion is not intended to give a definitive answer to the question about what there is. On the contrary, Mumford contends that metaphysics, and only metaphysics, is able to do it. We conclude, then, that Mumford´s arguments fail to show that laws do not exist.
