Michael Hicks (University of Cologne)
The laws of nature have an interesting internal explanatory structure. This leads to interesting questions for metaphysicians of laws: what is the nature of this explanation? Marc Lange has recently argued in favor of metalaws: higher-order laws governing other laws, of which symmetry principles may be an example. Lange argues that his view, unlike its competitors, can make sense of this. Here, I agree with Lange about the explanatory structure of laws, but disagree with him about the nature of this explanation. I then present a Humean view that neatly captures the explanatory power of symmetry principles.
