Harjit Bhogal
Biographic Data
| ID | 1238027 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Harjit Bhogal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Harjit |
| FAMILY NAME | Bhogal |
| SIGNATURE | BHOGAL H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maryland, College Park |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1261-3088 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
What Chance Doesn't Know
Humean accounts of chance have a problem with undermining futures: they have to accept that some series of events are physically possible and have a nonzero chance but are inconsistent with the chances being what they are. This contradicts basic platitudes about chances and is inconsistent with plausible constraints on credences. We show how Humeans can avoid these contradictions by drawing on metaphysically impossible worlds that are, neverthele…
On Unexplained (Modal) Patterns
Moral principle explanations of supervenience
What motivates humeanism
Necessities Overboard: A Reply to Lange
In this discussion note I reply to some criticisms that Marc Lange (2022) has directed at my Humean view of scientific laws (Bhogal, 2020) -- about whether Humean views can make sense of the apparent fact that laws are counterfactually invariant. The key idea of my response is that the Humean should think of their reduction of the laws to the Humean mosaic as closely related to other views where we reduce one domain to another but still allow tha…
Humean nomic essentialism
Humeanism – the idea that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences – and Nomic Essentialism – the idea that properties essentially play the nomic roles that they do – are two of the most important and influential positions in the metaphysics of science. Traditionally, it has been thought that these positions were incompatible competitors. We disagree. We argue that there is an attractive version of Humeanism that captures th…
What's the coincidence in debunking
Many moral debunking arguments are driven by the idea that the correlation between our moral beliefs and the moral truths is a big coincidence, given a robustly realist conception of morality. One influential response is that the correlation is not a coincidence because there is a common explainer of our moral beliefs and the moral truths. For example, the reason that I believe that I should feed my child is because feeding my child helps them to…
Difference-making and deterministic chance
Induction and the Glue of the World
Humean metaphysical views have often been criticised for leading to inductive scepticism. If there is no glue holding the world together, as the Humean believes, then there seems to be no basis on which to infer from past to future. However, Humeans have typically been unconcerned. After all, they say, everyone has a problem with induction. But if we look at the connection between induction and explanation, we can develop the problem of induction…
Humeanism about laws of nature
Humeanism about laws of nature is, roughly, the view that the laws of nature are just patterns, or ways of describing patterns, in the mosaic of events. In this paper, I survey some of the (many!) objections that have been raised to Humeanism, considering how the Humean might respond. And I consider how we might make a positive case for Humeanism. The common thread running through all this is that the viability of the Humean view relies on the Hu…
Coincidences and the Grain of Explanation
Humeanism about laws of nature
Humeanism about laws of nature is, roughly, the view that the laws of nature are just patterns, or ways of describing patterns, in the mosaic of events. In this paper, I survey some of the (many!) objections that have been raised to Humeanism, considering how the Humean might respond. And I consider how we might make a positive case for Humeanism. The common thread running through all this is that the viability of the Humean view relies on the Hu…
Coincidences and the Grain of Explanation
Coincidences and the Grain of Explanation
Humeanism about laws of nature
Humeanism about laws of nature is, roughly, the view that the laws of nature are just patterns, or ways of describing patterns, in the mosaic of events. In this paper, I survey some of the (many!) objections that have been raised to Humeanism, considering how the Humean might respond. And I consider how we might make a positive case for Humeanism. The common thread running through all this is that the viability of the Humean view relies on the Hu…
Difference-making and deterministic chance
Induction and the Glue of the World
Humean metaphysical views have often been criticised for leading to inductive scepticism. If there is no glue holding the world together, as the Humean believes, then there seems to be no basis on which to infer from past to future. However, Humeans have typically been unconcerned. After all, they say, everyone has a problem with induction. But if we look at the connection between induction and explanation, we can develop the problem of induction…
What's the coincidence in debunking
Many moral debunking arguments are driven by the idea that the correlation between our moral beliefs and the moral truths is a big coincidence, given a robustly realist conception of morality. One influential response is that the correlation is not a coincidence because there is a common explainer of our moral beliefs and the moral truths. For example, the reason that I believe that I should feed my child is because feeding my child helps them to…
Humean nomic essentialism
Humeanism – the idea that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences – and Nomic Essentialism – the idea that properties essentially play the nomic roles that they do – are two of the most important and influential positions in the metaphysics of science. Traditionally, it has been thought that these positions were incompatible competitors. We disagree. We argue that there is an attractive version of Humeanism that captures th…
On Unexplained (Modal) Patterns
Moral principle explanations of supervenience
What motivates humeanism
Necessities Overboard: A Reply to Lange
In this discussion note I reply to some criticisms that Marc Lange (2022) has directed at my Humean view of scientific laws (Bhogal, 2020) -- about whether Humean views can make sense of the apparent fact that laws are counterfactually invariant. The key idea of my response is that the Humean should think of their reduction of the laws to the Humean mosaic as closely related to other views where we reduce one domain to another but still allow tha…
What Chance Doesn't Know
Humean accounts of chance have a problem with undermining futures: they have to accept that some series of events are physically possible and have a nonzero chance but are inconsistent with the chances being what they are. This contradicts basic platitudes about chances and is inconsistent with plausible constraints on credences. We show how Humeans can avoid these contradictions by drawing on metaphysically impossible worlds that are, neverthele…
Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (7 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (7 works) · Metaphysics (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Philosophy of language (4 works) · Philosophy of mind (4 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (3 works) · Economics (2 works)