LE NEPVOU, Alexandre (2026) Laws as Constraint Residues: Toward a Structural Ontology of Law. [Preprint]

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Abstract

This paper proposes a structural account of scientific laws as stabilized residues of constraint regimes, rather than as metaphysical primitives or regularities. Drawing on recent
developments in the philosophy of science and structural ontology, we argue that lawhood
arises from the persistence of invariant patterns across admissible variations within a
regime of constraint. Our framework reconceives laws as functional invariants extracted
from the internal architecture of scientific models, formalized via projection operators and
local neighborhoods in constraint space. This structural residue approach captures the
operational role of laws in guiding prediction, explanation, and theoretical unification,
while remaining neutral on ontological commitments to universals or modal realism. We
compare our proposal with alternative accounts of lawhood, including counterfactual
stability (Lange) and interventionist invariance (Woodward), and conclude by outlining
the implications of our framework for the natural and social sciences.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID LE NEPVOU, Alexandre idealismescientifique@gmail.com 0009-0003-7233-5029
Additional Information:	Accepted by Erkenntnis. Preprint version.
Keywords:	scientific laws; structural realism; constraint regimes; invariance; projectibility; explanation
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Laws of Nature Specific Sciences > Physics General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Depositing User:	Mr Alexandre LE NEPVOU
Date Deposited:	26 Apr 2026 12:41
Last Modified:	26 Apr 2026 12:41
Item ID:	29331
DOI or Unique Handle:	10.1007/s10670-026-01109-9
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Laws of Nature Specific Sciences > Physics General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Date:	April 2026
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/29331

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