Linguistic Regularity

Our very use of language presumes some regularity in nature. We cannot think or speak without a presumption of regularity in nature. The application of the same word more than once presumes something recurring in the world. Since all words can be used more than once, no word stands for a non-recurring entity. As we are part of nature, the regularities in our use of words naturally corresponds to natural regularities in the world. At the most fundamental level this cannot be stated. See http://dennisdarland.com/philosophy/same_way.html . If Whitehead is correct, the actual occasions making up the world are non-recurring events [drops of experience] – thus they cannot be named, but only described. Names stand for eternal objects - recurring characteristics of events, or various sorts of classes of events, such as physical objects, or people – which Whitehead calls different sorts of nexi or societies. The recurring application of the words, for the recurring regularities in the world, means that all words stand for universals – but there are very different sorts of regularity. I seem to remember in Investigating Wittgenstein, Merrill B. Hintikka and Jaakko Hintikka saying the sort of object a word stood for was indicated by the use of the word – its application. A regular application of words implies regularities in the world and a connection between these regularities and our use of words.

Scientific Laws

Scientific laws are verbal expressions of regularities we find in the world. They started with simple connections like “Fire burns.” And progress to the most advanced theoretical physics. So far the laws discovered are approximations, with limited ranges of applicability. Science purses greater and greater exactness and generality.