What is a disposition?

Synthese 144 (3):321-41 (2005)
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Abstract

Attempts to capture the distinction between categorical and dispositional states in terms of more primitive modal notions – subjunctive conditionals, causal roles, or combinatorial principles – are bound to fail. Such failure is ensured by a deep symmetry in the ways dispositional and categorical states alike carry modal import. But the categorical/dispositional distinction should not be abandoned; it underpins important metaphysical disputes. Rather, it should be taken as a primitive, after which the doomed attempts at reductive explanation can be transformed into circular but interesting accounts.

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Troy Cross
Reed College

Citations of this work

Properties.Francesco Orilia & Michele Paolini Paoletti - 2020 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Dispositions and Powers.Toby Friend & Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2023 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Tuomas E. Tahko.
What Do Powers Do When They Are Not Manifested?Stathis Psillos - 2006 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (1):137-156.

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The logic of scientific discovery.Karl Raimund Popper - 1934 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Hutchinson Publishing Group.
Philosophical papers.David Kellogg Lewis - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Causation.David Lewis - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (17):556-567.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery.K. Popper - 1959 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 10 (37):55-57.

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