Neil E. Williams develops a systematic metaphysics centred on the idea of powers, as a rival to neo-Humeanism, the dominant systematic metaphysics in philosophy today. Williams takes powers to be inherently causal properties and uses them as the foundation of his explanations of causation, persistence, laws, and modality.

– The paper defends a naturalistic version of modal actualism according to which what is metaphysically possible is determined by dispositions found in the actual world. We argue that there is just one world—this one—and that all genuine possibilities are anchored by the dispositions exemplified in this world. This is the case regardless of whether or not those dispositions are manifested. As long as the possibility is one that would obtain were the relevant disposition manifested, it is a genuine possibility. (...) Furthermore, by starting from actual dispositional properties and branching out, we are able to include possibilities that are quite far removed from any state of affairs that happens to obtain, while still providing a natural and actual grounding of possibility. Stressing the importance of ontological considerations in any theory of possibility, it is argued that the account of possibility in terms of dispositional properties provides a more palatable ontology than those of its competitors. Coming at it from the other direction, the dispositional account of possibility also provides motivation for taking an ontology of dispositions more seriously. As well as the relevant dispositional notions required to lay out the view, the paper discusses the dispositional realism needed as the basis for the account of possibility. (shrink)

– The conjunction of three plausible theses about the nature of causal powers—that they are intrinsic, that their effects are produced mutually, and that the manifestations they are for are essential to them—leads to a problem concerning the ability of causal powers to work together to produce manifestations. I call this problem the problem of fit. Fortunately for proponents of a power-based metaphysic, the problem of fit is not insurmountable. Fit can be engineered if powers are properties whose natures are (...) determined holistically. However, this power holism does not come without a cost, as a power-based metaphysic must be supplemented by a certain amount of additional machinery in order to avoid the problem. (shrink)

Central to the debate between Humean and anti-Humean metaphysics is the question of whether dispositions can exist in the absence of categorical properties that ground them (that is, where the causal burden is shifted on to categorical properties on which the dispositions would therefore supervene). Dispositional essentialists claim that they can; categoricalists reject the possibility of such ?baseless? dispositions, requiring that all dispositions must ultimately have categorical bases. One popular argument, recently dubbed the ?Argument from Science?, has appeared in one (...) or another form over much of the last century and purports to win the day for the dispositional essentialist. Taking its cue from physical theory, the Argument from Science treats the exclusively dispositional characterizations of the fundamental particles one finds in physical theory as providing a key premise in what has been called a ?decisive? argument for baseless dispositions. Despite sharing the intuition that dispositions can be baseless, I argue that the force and significance of the Argument from Science have been greatly overestimated: no version of the argument is close to decisive, and only one version succeeds in scoring points against the categoricalist. Not only is physical theory more ontologically innocent than defenders of baseless dispositions seem to appreciate, most versions of the Argument from Science neglect important ways that dispositions could be grounded by categorical properties. (shrink)

Power theorists are divided on the question of whether individual powers are single-track (for a single manifestation type) or are multi-track (capable of producing distinct manifestation types for distinct stimuli). EJ Lowe has recently defended single-tracking, arguing that the multi-tracker can provide no adequate reason for treating powers as capable of having multiple manifestation types, and claiming that putative instances of multi-track powers are either single-track powers in need of unifying descriptions or are merely several single-track powers. I respond to (...) Lowe on behalf of the multi-tracker, first by arguing that he overlooks the extra-empirical features of the debate, then by posing a dilemma for any single-track account of powers concerning the single-tracker’s ability to appropriately deal with fine-grained manifestation types. Finally I provide the aforementioned reason for thinking that there are multi-track powers. (shrink)

When it comes to scientific explanation, our parsimonious tendencies mean that we focus almost exclusively on those dispositions whose manifestations result in some sort of change – changes in properties, locations, velocities and so on. Following this tendency, our notion of causation is one that is inherently dynamic, as if the maintenance of the status quo were merely a given. Contrary to this position, I argue that a complete concept of causation must also account for dispositions whose manifestations involve no (...) changes at all, and that a causal theory that fails to include these ‘static’ dispositions alongside the dynamic ones renders static occurrences miraculous. (shrink)

Recently, several philosophers have defended what might be called `neo-essentialism' about natural kinds. Their views purport to improve upon the traditional essentialism of Kripke and Putnam by rejecting the claim that essences must be comprised of intrinsic properties. I argue that this so-called break from traditional essentialism is not a break at all, because the widespread interpretation of Putnam according to which he takes essences to be intrinsic is mistaken. Putnam makes no claim to the effect that essences of natural (...) kinds must be intrinsic, and offers at least one example of a natural kind whose essence is non-intrinsic. I conclude that his traditional essentialism has been misinterpreted, and consequently that neo-essentialism is not so `neo' after all. (shrink)

Arguing against the claim that every dispositional property is grounded in some property other than itself, Stephen Mumford presents what he calls the ‘Ungrounded Argument’. If successful, the Ungrounded Argument would represent a major victory for anti-Humean metaphysics over its Humean rivals, as it would allow for the existence of primitive modality. Unfortunately, Humeans need not yet be worried, as the Ungrounded Argument is itself lacking in grounding. I indicate where Mumford’s argument falls down, claiming that even the dispositions of (...) the simplest particles can have categorical bases. (shrink)

It is commonplace among friends of irreducible causal powers to depict powers as producing their characteristic manifestations as a matter of metaphysical necessity. That is to say that when a power finds itself in those circumstances that stimulate it, it cannot help but be exercised: its effects must occur. The result is a metaphysic that depicts the world not as loose and separate but as united by the strongest glue; this is but one way in which the world as understood (...) by friends of powers differs from that of their Humean adversaries. However, this typical understanding of powers has recently come under attack. Schrenk and Mumford and Anjum have independently argued that metaphysical necessity is not up to the task of connecting a stimulated power with its manifestation. Employing the same devices friends of powers use in rejecting attempts to analyze power ascriptions in terms of counterfactual conditionals, Schrenk and Mumford and Anjum argue that any process a power elicits could be frustrated by way of interference or prevention, and thereby blocked. For example, striking a dry match against a rough surface will generally lead to its lighting, but as anyone who has attempted to do this can attest, a strong gust of wind can prevent the match from lighting, despite the striking having taken place. Hence, even in the presence of its stimulus, the power's manifestation is not ensured, and so the claim that powers necessarily bring about their manifestations is undermined. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the view that diseases comprise natural kinds and how this view is in conflict with the essentialist picture of natural kinds as championed by Kripke and Putnam. This essentialist depiction of natural kinds contends that in order for a class of entities to be a natural kind, it is required that all and only members of the class instantiate very specific properties that explain the presence of any other properties typically associated with being a member of (...) the kind; these privileged properties constitute the “essence” of the kind. The problem is that the essentialist picture provides only two options, none of which is desirable: satisfy the essentialist desiderata by locating some etiological feature both necessary and sufficient for kind membership, or reject the thought that similarity between disease instances can be understood in terms of natural kinds. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:In his Pragmatism lectures, William James argued that philosophers' temperaments partially determine the theories that they find satisfying, and that their influence explains persistent disagreement within the history of philosophy. Crucially, James was not only making a descriptive claim, but also a normative one: temperaments, he thought, could play a legitimate epistemic role in our philosophical inquiries. This paper aims to evaluate and defend this normative claim.There are three problems for James's view: (1) that allowing temperaments to play a role (...) within inquiry replaces philosophical disagreement with psychological difference; (2) that including temperaments would allow arbitrary elements to influence the outcome of inquiry; and (3) that such a view assumes an implausible metaphysical picture. Through clarifying the nature of temperaments, and what counts as a satisfactory philosophical theory on a pragmatist account, this paper presents an interpretation of James's metaphilosophical claims that can provide satisfactory responses to these problems. (shrink)

Both Kant and James claim to limit the role of knowledge in order to make room for faith. In this paper, we argue that despite some similarities, their attempts to do this come apart. Our main claim is that, although both Kant and James justify our adopting religious beliefs on practical grounds, James believes that we can—and should—subsequently assess such beliefs on the basis of evidence. We offer our own account of this evidence and discuss what this difference means for (...) their accounts of religious belief. (shrink)

In this chapter, we compare Kant and James’ accounts of freedom. Despite both thinkers’ rejecting compatibilism for the sake of practical reason, there are two striking differences in their stances. The first concerns whether or not freedom requires the possibility of an open future. James holds that morality hinges on the real possibility that the future can be affected by our actions. Kant, on the other hand, seems to maintain that we can still be free in the crucial sense, even (...) if none of our actions can have any effect on the future. The second difference between them is related, and concerns the location of freedom. Kant views experience as determined by natural necessity, and locates freedom outside of it, in things-in-themselves. James, on the other hand, has a richer conception of experience than Kant, and holds that we can locate our freedom within experience alone. In the end, we contend that James has a better account of how freedom relates to our experience, but this comes at a cost. For while Kant's account struggles with the relationship between freedom and experience, it has the advantage of insulating our freedom from potential empirical challenges. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to give an ontologically informed account of disease that can aid in the construction of disease ontologies. The paper begins by distinguishing cases of diseases from what are purely structural abnormalities, referred to as ‘disorders’. The paper then presents a causal model apt for the understanding of disease that distinguishes diseases from both their causes and their potential effects. The analysis of disease defended treats disease in terms of distortions of standard cellular network processes, (...) where those distortions are incapable of self remedy and produce biologically disadvantageous symptoms. (shrink)

Since the term ‘pragmatism’ was first coined, there have been debates about who is or is not a ‘real’ pragmatist, and what that might mean. The division most often drawn in contemporary pragmatist scholarship is between William James and Charles Peirce. Peirce is said to present a version of pragmatism which is scientific, logical and objective about truth, whereas James presents a version which is nominalistic, subjectivistic and leads to relativism. The first person to set out this division was in (...) fact Peirce himself, when he distinguished his own ‘pragmaticism’ from the broad pragmatism of James and others. Peirce sets out six criteria which defines ‘pragmaticism’: the pragmatic maxim; a number of ‘preliminary propositions’; prope-positivism; metaphysical inquiry; critical common-sensism; and scholastic realism. This paper sets out to argue that in fact James meets each of these criteria, and should be seen as a ‘pragmaticist’ by Peirce’s own lights. (shrink)

Powers theorists frequently assert that their neo-Aristotelian frameworks are dynamic, and that this gives them a theoretical advantage over their neo-Humean rivals. But recently it’s been claimed that activity can also be used to divide powers theories themselves. Dynamism is here understood primarily in terms of activity: a metaphysic counts as dynamic according to the place activity is given within the system. Activists treat activity as fundamental or irreducible, and claim to have the philosophical high ground over those ‘passivist’ powers (...) theories wherein activity is reducible or nonfundamental. In this paper I take a closer look at dynamism within powers theories, with a particular focus on how the activism/passivism distinction might be made. I then consider the broader ontological impact that the various commitments to activity might carry, along with an assessment as to who appears to be better off. Despite what’s been claimed, I find no reason to think that activists have any serious theoretical advantage in this debate. In fact, as things presently stand, I am not convinced that powers and activity make for a good pairing at all, as there’s presently no good model for powers like this. (shrink)

Within much contemporary social ontology there is a particular methodology at work. This methodology takes as a starting point two or more asocial or atomic individuals. These individuals are taken to be perfectly functional agents, though outside of all social relations. Following this, combinations of these individuals are considered, to deduce what constitutes a social group. Here I will argue that theories which rely on this methodology are always circular, so long as they purport to describe the formation of all (...) social groups, as they must always presuppose a pre-existing collectivity. Such methodology also produces various distortions in our theories, such as voluntarism. I focus on the workings of Plural Subject Theory as laid out by Margaret Gilbert in On Social Facts. I show that the formation of a plural subject always requires communication, and that communication always requires a pre-existing collectivity. i examine the elements within Plural Subject Theory which protect gilbert from these accusations of circularity, and argue against them. I finalise by suggesting that what Plural Subject Theory, and social ontology in general, requires as a theoretical starting point is not atomic individuals and their combinations, but rather combinations of already socialised or embedded individuals. (shrink)

It would not be an exaggeration to say that pluralism was central to the philosophical thought of William James. Repeatedly, James claimed that the difference between monism and pluralism was the "most pregnant" in philosophy.1 Radical empiricism, James's distinctive metaphysical vision, was first introduced as the view that pluralism was a plausible hypothesis about the permanent state of the world, and this pluralism continued to be a central feature of his philosophy in later years.2The assertion that pluralism was a valid (...) philosophical hypothesis was not merely theoretical, but practical. James often connected pluralism with democracy, and monism with "despotism" (James... (shrink)

Volume 28, Issue 1, January 2020, Page 209-212.

I raise a puzzle case for “cluster” accounts of natural kinds—the homeostatic property cluster and stable property cluster accounts, especially—on the basis of their expected treatment of the metaphysics of certain disease kinds. Some kinds, I argue, fail to exhibit the co-instantiated property clusters these cluster views take to be constitutive of natural kinds. Some genetic diseases, for example, have archetypical instances with few or none of the pathological processes or symptoms associated with the kind: their instances are typified by (...) a single dispositional property. I dub such kinds ‘amorphic’, owing to their limited morphology, and try out a number of ways in which these kinds might be treated in terms of property clusters, adapting responses cluster theorists have offered to the problem of polymorphic species. Finding these responses wanting, I conclude that cluster accounts are unlikely to be the best account of the metaphysics of amorphic kinds. (shrink)

John Heil’s From an Ontological Point of View (Heil 2003) is a tremendous philosophical work. The neo-Lockean ontology the reader finds within its 267 pages is a sensible and refreshing alternative to the neo-Humean ontologies which presently occupy the vast majority of the metaphysical literature. What Heil offers is a much needed change in perspective. Nor are the strengths of the book limited to Heil’s willingness to approach central metaphysical problems in largely untried and unpopular way; the book is very (...) clear in its presentation, accessible to wide readership, and tightly argued throughout. Heil’s efforts in this book are to be applauded, and the result is one that warrants serious consideration by all those interested in serious metaphysics. But the interest should not end there: the lessons of Heil’s book are ones that almost all philosophers ought to take seriously. Despite the criticism that follows, my overall position should not be taken as anything short of a whole-hearted endorsement of Heil’s book. Nonetheless, when philosophy is one’s trade, there is always going to be something to disagree about, however much one is amenable to a view. (shrink)

– Common to most realist accounts of powers is the claim that they are intrinsic properties. Most arguments presented in defence of the intrinsicality thesis have as their targets reductive treatments of powers that conceive of powers as relations between the object described as possessing the power and either some previous manifestation event or the laws of nature. However, even if these arguments are successful, they fail to establish that powers are intrinsic properties; at best they demonstrate the irreducibility of (...) powers. In order to take the further step to intrinsicality, these arguments need to be supplemented by an argument to the effect that powers are not relations that hold between pairs or sets of objects. This paper aims to supply that missing argument. (shrink)

– The conjunction of three plausible theses about the nature of causal powers (that they are intrinsic, that their effects are produced mutually, and that their effects are necessary) leads to a problem concerning the ability of causal powers to work together. After presenting the problem and the three theses in question, I argue that despite giving rise to the problem, none of the three theses is such that it should be abandoned. Instead, I argue that an account of causal (...) powers best avoids the problem by bringing in some additional metaphysical machinery which can be appended to the account. Some suggestions are made concerning what that appended machinery ought to be. (shrink)

Volume 28, Issue 1, January 2020, Page 209-212.

Dispositional Pluralism By McKitrickJenniferOxford University Press, 2018. iv + 262 pp.