The ‘great divide’ in the metaphysics of science is between Humean approaches—which reduce scientific laws (and related modalities) to patterns of occurrent facts—and anti-Humean approaches—where laws stand apart from the patterns of events, making those events hold. There is a vast literature on this debate, with many problems raised for the Humean. But a major problem comes right at the start—what’s the motivation for Humeanism in the first place? This is rather unclear. In fact Maudlin, and other anti-Humeans, claim that there is no good motivation for Humeanism. I criticize a few influential approaches to motivating Humeanism—in particular those based on empiricism, pragmatism, and fidelity to science. In their place I suggest a different type of motivation, which has not received much attention in the literature, that rests on considerations of the role of unification in scientific understanding.

科学形而上学中的“巨大鸿沟”在于休米亚方法和反休米亚方法之间——前者将科学定律（和相关模式）简化为当前事实的模式——后者将定律与事件模式分开，使这些事件成立。关于这场辩论的文献很多，其中提出了许多问题。但一个主要问题一开始就出现了——幽默主义的最初动机是什么？这还不清楚。事实上，莫德林和其他反休米亚人声称，休米亚主义没有好的动机。我批评了一些激励 Humeanism 的有影响力的方法——特别是那些基于经验主义、实用主义和对科学的忠诚的方法。取而代之的是，我提出了一种不同类型的动机，这种动机在文献中没有得到太多关注，它建立在对统一在科学理解中的作用的考虑之上。