Bas C. van Fraassen is at Princeton University.
"The most readable of the recent literature in the emerging field....This book might be the exemplar chosen by faculty of introductory philosophy of science programs. Highly recommended for all library collections in the philosophy of science."--
Choice"A fundamentally important contribution to philosophy. It is van Fraassen's finest book. With tight, careful arguments he demolishes the more prominent philosophical analyses of laws of nature. His definitive attack on inference to the best explanation leaves that notion thoroughly discredited and without a shred of credibility....In a pioneering discussion he also shows that symmetry considerations cannot provide that 'something more' philosophers demand of laws. The book further advances van Fraassen's own epistemological views and enhances our understanding of the Semantic Approach to philosophy and its superiority to earlier syntactical approaches.
Laws and Symmetry is one of the best works in philosophy of science this century."--Frederick Suppe,
University of Maryland