Career
He is one of the major proponents of the New Essentialist school of philosophy of science (philosophy of nature). In The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism, he groups a number of philosophers into his camp: The new essentialism has evolved from these beginnings and can reasonably claim to be a comprehensive philosophy of nature. Philosophers around the world, including Sydney Shoemaker, Charles Martin, George Molnar, George Bealer, John Bigelow, Caroline Lierse, Evan Fales, Crawford Elder, Nicholas Maxwell, Nancy Cartwright and John Heil, have contributed to in various ways to its development.
So the new essentialism is not just a personal view, but an emerging metaphysical perspective that is the culmination of many different attempts to arrive at a satisfactory post-Humean philosophy of nature.
P. R. G. Marc Lange, Laws and Lawmakers: Science, Metaphysics, and the Laws of Nature (Oxford University Press, 2009). Alexander Bird, Nature"s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties (Oxford University Press, 2010).
