Regularities, Natural Patterns and Laws of Nature *

ABSTRACT: The goal of this paper is to outline and defend an empiricist metaphysics of laws of nature. The key em-piricist idea is that there are regularities without regularity-enforcers. Differently put, there are natural laws without law-makers of a distinct metaphysical kind. This outline relies on the concept of a ‘natural pattern ’ and more significantly on the existence of a network of natural patterns in nature. The relation between a regu-larity and a pattern will be analysed in terms of mereology. Here is the road map. In section 2, I briefly dis-cuss the relation between empiricism and metaphysics, aiming to show that an empiricist metaphysics is possible. In section 3, I offer arguments against stronger metaphysical views of laws. Then, in section 4, I motivate nomic objectivism. In section 5, I address the question ‘what is a regularity? ’ and develop a novel answer to it, based on the notion of a pattern. In section 6, I analyse the notion of pattern and in section 7 I raise the question: ‘what is a law of nature?’, the answer to which is: a law of nature is a regularity that is characterised by the unity of a natural pattern.