Many powers-realists assume that the powers of objects are identical with the dispositions of objects and, hence, that ‘power’ and ‘disposition’ are interchangeable. In this article, I aim to disentangle dispositions from powers with the goal of getting a better sense of how powers and dispositions relate to one another. I present and defend a modest realism about dispositions built upon a standard strong realism about powers. I argue that each correct disposition-ascription we can make of an object (...) is made true by the manifestations towards which a given power or collection of powers of the object is directed.RésuméDe nombreux réalistes des pouvoirs supposent que les pouvoirs des objets sont identiques aux dispositions des objets et, par conséquent, que le « pouvoir » et la « disposition » sont interchangeables. Dans cet article, j'ai pour objectif de démêler les dispositions des pouvoirs dans le but d'avoir une meilleure idée de la façon dont les pouvoirs et les dispositions se rapportent les uns aux autres. Je présente et défends un réalisme des dispositions modeste fondées sur un réalisme des pouvoirs standard fort. Je soutiens que chaque disposition-ascription correcte que nous pouvons faire d'un objet est rendue vraie par les manifestations vers lesquelles un pouvoir donné ou une collection de pouvoirs de l'objet est dirigé. (shrink)

This dissertation defends and develops the thesis that some instances, or tokens, of dispositional properties are pure. A pure disposition has no causal basis in any further properties beyond the disposition. A causal basis typically consists of some set of properties underlying a disposition that enables the disposition to manifest when stimulated in the appropriate circumstances. For example, a vase is fragile because it is disposed to break when a hammer or other suitable object strikes it, (...) where the causal basis for fragility is the underlying micro-structure of the vase. Moreover, micro-structural properties of the vase seem to anchor the continuous existence of the vase’s fragility when the vase is not actually breaking. In contrast to the neo-Humean metaphysical assumption that any disposition requires a causal basis in further properties, as in the example of fragility, the Pure Dispositions Thesis denies this. This dissertation achieves four goals. First, it defends the Pure Dispositions Thesis from notable objections: the Powers Regress Argument, the Insufficient Causal Basis Argument, the Argument from the Identity Thesis, and the Argument from Spatial Occupation. Second, it evaluates several theories of the continuous existence of pure dispositions, and argues that some pure dispositions are self-grounded via a minimally sufficient occurrence of their own power. Third, it presents two arguments that some pure dispositions are extrinsically grounded, the Argument from the Higgs Field and the Argument from Priority Monism, and deflects numerous objections to those arguments. Finally, it develops and defends an account of systems of pure dispositions, arguing that a pure dispositional system may generate higher-level categorical and dispositional properties by way of an emergence mechanism involving the union of two pure dispositions. (shrink)

This article will investigate why Mission Councils continued to exist for so long after the so-called autonomous churches were established in South Africa following the upsurge ofEthiopian and other types of African initiated churches at the close of the 19th century inopposition to the European sending churches. It will also examine how the emergingPartnership in Mission policy affected the process of integration of church and mission. Usingthe closing years of the Church of Scotland South African Joint Council as a casestudy, (...) the author examines primary sources to uncover the exercise of power demonstratedthrough racism manifested in the disposition of personnel, property and finance to control thedevelopment of authentic autonomy. (shrink)

In taking properties to have powerful or dispositional essences, dispositionalism is primed to provide an account of causation. This paper lays out a challenge confronting the dispositionalist’s ability to account for how powers causally interact with one another so as to bring about collective results. The challenge, here labeled the “interaction gap,” is raised for two competing kinds of approaches to dispositional interaction: contribution combinationist and mutual manifestationist. After carefully highlighting and testing potential resources for closing the interaction gap, it (...) is concluded that the mutual manifestationist approach holds a significant advantage. In turn, the importance of the interaction gap itself is highlighted. While powers prime an ontology to yield an account of causation, how far that account can actually go depends on the metaphysical details of one’s view of powers and their causal interaction. (shrink)

Work on dispositions focuses chiefly on dispositions that are manifested in dynamic causal processes. Williams, Neil. 2005. “Static and Dynamic Dispositions.” Synthese 146: 303–24 has argued that the focus on dynamic dispositions has been at the expense of a richer ontology of dispositions. He contends that we ought to distinguish between dynamic and static dispositions. The manifestation of a dynamic disposition involves some change in the world. The manifestation of a static disposition does not involve any change in (...) the world. In this paper, we concede that making a conceptual distinction between dynamic and static dispositions is useful and we allow that we can truthfully represent objects as manifesting static dispositions. However, we argue that the distinction is not ontologically deep. Rather, the truthmakers for our representations of static dispositions are actually dynamic dispositions to whose manifestations we may fail to be sensitive. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the possibility that the point Kripke (1982) made about understanding meaning also applies to understanding social interaction. This understanding involves extending what one has learned from a finite number of past observations to provide normative guidance for an indefinitely complicated future. Kripke argues (to my mind correctly) that what one should do in the future is inevitably underdetermined by the infinite possible interpretations of the past. Moreover, no matter how much one attempts to make the (...) rules explicit, they will always be underspecified. I then explore the speculative hypothesis that having different tacit dispositions made manifest in one’s understanding of the rules of social engagement would look remarkably similar to tendencies exhibited by many autistic individuals. The analogy will say something substantive about how neurotypicals (and other autists) should treat the behavior of autistic individuals—if we are not even doing anything incorrect, then society should not be criticizing our means of engagement. (shrink)

From Marcus Tullius Cicero’s philosophical writings, the author first draws out a modest network of ideas that informs his understanding of what it means to be a good man (vir bonus). Then, he finds in Cicero the idea of a befitting mutuality among four distinctively human capacities: a faculty for inquiry into and love for truth manifest in words and actions (reason); a disposition for the recognition of and attraction to things of worth beyond self-interest (the honorable); an acute (...) sense of one own spheres of responsibility along with facility for speaking and acting appropriately within them (appropriate action), and fostering and extending the bonds of mutual personal relations grounded in justice and benevolence (society). Against the background of deep commitments in modernity to hedonism and autonomous individualism, the author proposes a retrieval of the virtue of the honorable as an attractive alternative. (shrink)

Neuron diagrams are heavily employed in academic discussions of causation. Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum, however, offer an alternative approach employing vector diagrams, which this paper attempts to develop further. I identify three ways in which dispositionalists have taken the activities of powers to be related: stimulation, mutual manifestation, and contribution combination. While Mumford and Anjum do provide resources for representing contribution combination, which might be sufficient for their particular brand of dispositionalism, I argue that those resources are not (...) flexible enough to further accommodate either stimulation or mutual manifestation. Representational tools are provided to address these limitations, improving the general value of the vector model for dispositionalist approaches to causation. (shrink)

It has been argued that virtue reliabilism faces difficulties in explaining why the “because-of” relation between true belief and the relevant competence is absent in Gettier cases. However, prominent proponents of this view such as Sosa and Turri suggest that these difficulties can be overcome by invoking the manifestation relation. In his Judgment and Agency, Sosa supports this claim based on an analogy between Gettier cases and what in the literature on dispositions is called mimic cases. While there are initial (...) motivations for the alleged analogy, I claim there are at least two arguments against it: 1. there is an asymmetry in the nature of context-sensitivity between the problem of mimicking and the Gettier problem; 2. while causal deviance and double luck can be found in both the mimic case and the Gettier case, their causal processes are different in important respects, making it challenging to see them as both falling under the same category. If these arguments are on the right track, the upshot is that virtue reliablists such as Sosa and Turri who describe the “because-of” relation in terms of the manifestation relation still owe us an account of why the manifestation relation is absent in Gettier cases. (shrink)

– 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)

In this paper I investigate whether the phenomenon of quantum decoherence, the vanishing of interference and detectable entanglement on quantum systems in virtue of interactions with the environment, can be understood as the manifestation of a disposition. I will highlight the advantages of this approach as a realist interpretation of the quantum formalism, and demonstrate how such an approach can benefit from advances in the metaphysics of dispositions. I will also confront some commonalities with and differences to the many (...) worlds interpretation, and address the difficulties induced by quantum non-locality. I conclude that there are ways to deal with these issues and that the proposal hence is an avenue worth pursuing. (shrink)

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 grounded in the dispositions exemplified in it. This is the case 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 countenance possibilities 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. (shrink)

An important question in epistemology concerns how the two species of justification, propositional and doxastic justification, are related to one another. According to the received view, basing one’s belief p on the grounds that provide propositional justification to believe p is sufficient for the belief to be doxastically justified. In a recent paper, however, John Turri has suggested that we should reverse the direction of explanation. In this paper, I propose to see the debate in a new light by suggesting (...) that the best way to understand the relationship between these species of justification is by viewing propositional justification as an dispositional property that a subject can have with doxastic justification as its manifestation. I show how the debate in metaphysics over the question of how disposition statements should be analyzed runs parallel to the epistemological debate, and bring some of the results in the dispositions debate to bear on the epistemological question. I end by offering some tentative remarks regarding the order of priority of these two species of justification. (shrink)

I address a question in moral metaphysics: How are conflicts between moral obligations possible? I begin by explaining why we cannot give a satisfactory answer to this question simply by positing that such conflicts are conflicts between rules, principles, or reasons. I then develop and defend the “Dispositional Account,” which posits that conflicts between moral obligations are conflicts between the manifestations of obligating dispositions (obligating powers, capacities, etc.), just as conflicts between physical forces are conflicts between the manifestations of (certain) (...) causal dispositions (causal powers, capacities, etc.). This account combines the so-called “moral forces” interpretation of prima facie obligations with a dispositional moral metaphysic according to which the metaphysical grounds of moral obligations are not rules or laws, but rather real, irreducibly dispositional properties (or powers) of moral agents and patients. My principal aims are to offer a theoretically attractive and suitably metaphysical account of conflicts of obligation, and to show that the dispositional moral metaphysic that grounds the Dispositional Account can explain and accommodate plausible normative views that rule- and law-based alternatives cannot, as well as to answer objections that have been pressed against other accounts of moral conflict (especially Ross’s) that appeal to moral dispositions or forces. (shrink)

The present paper argues that when thematic roles are restricted to judgments about causal properties of events, it falls short of accounting for cases where thematic roles reflect judgments about dispositional properties of objects. I develop my argument with a case study on a class of verbs that have been called ‘Emission Verbs’ and which are difficult to bring in line with the unaccusativity hypothesis put forward by Perlmutter. Reviewing two diametrically opposed accounts of Emission Verbs in the literature, I (...) show that the thematic-semantic relation between the events described by Emission Verbs and their single arguments cannot be characterized unambiguously in terms of causal properties of events but pertains to dispositional properties residing in the emitter argument. The paper develops a lexical-semantic analysis of Emission Verbs according to which the event described by an Emission Verb is the manifestation of the dispositional property of the emitter argument when appropriate external circumstances obtain. The paper concludes by outlining how the proposed dispositional analysis of Emission Verbs may inform the analysis of the causative alternation. (shrink)

A disposition or dispositional property is a capacity, ability, or potential to display or exhibit some outcome. Evolvability refers to a disposition to evolve. This chapter discusses why the dispositional nature of evolvability matters—why philosophical distinctions about dispositions can have scientific implications. To that end, we build a conceptual toolkit with vocabulary from prior philosophical analyses using a different disposition: protein foldability. We then apply this toolkit to address several methodological questions related to evolvability. What entities are (...) the bearers of evolvability? What features causally contribute to the disposition of evolvability? How does evolvability manifest? The various possible answers to these questions available from philosophical distinctions suggest key implications for why the concept of evolvability as a disposition is useful in evolutionary research. These include (1) securing scientific virtues (e.g., explanatory depth and generalization, prediction or retrodiction, and control or manipulation) and (2) fostering interdisciplinary collaboration through the coordination of definitional diversity and different types of inquiry. Together these facilitate concentration on a variety of research questions at different levels of organization and on distinct time scales, all of which should be expected for a complex dispositional property such as evolvability. (shrink)

The vast majority of metaphysicians agree that powers (in contrast to categorical properties) can exist unmanifested. This paper focuses on the ontological distinction between unmanifested and manifested powers underpinning that fact and has two main aims. First, to determine the proper relata of the distinction and second, to show that an unrestricted version of dispositional monism faces serious difficulties to accommodate it. As far as the first aim is concerned, it is argued that the distinction in question, in order to (...) be free of irrelevant features, must hold between an un- manifested power-instance and the same power-instance being manifested. To the second end, the paper examines two possible candidate distinctions (actual vs. possible, be- ing-in-energeia vs. being-in-capacity). It is argued that the former fails to be a good fit for the role that the distinction under consideration should play in a dispositional monistic context. It is also argued that a specific version of the latter can ground a promising solution to the difficulty discussed in the paper. That solution, however, presupposes the inclusion of aspects of the Aristotelian metaphysical framework for powers to the dispositional monistic context. (shrink)

Dispositional properties are often referred to as ‘causal powers’, but what does dispositional causation amount to? Any viable theory must account for two fundamental aspects of the metaphysics of causation – the causal complexity and context sensitivity of causal interactions. The theory of mutual manifestations attempts to do so by locating the complexity and context sensitivity within the nature of dispositions themselves. But is this theory an acceptable first step towards a viable theory of dispositional causation? This paper argues that (...) the reconceptualization that the theory entails comes at too high a price, and is an unnecessary step in the wrong direction: these two central aspects concerning the metaphysics of causation can and should be accounted for in a dispositional account of causation without it. (shrink)

Dispositions can combine as vector sums. Recent authors on dispositions, such as George Molnar and Stephen Mumford, have responded to this feature of dispositions by introducing a distinction between effects and contributions to effects, and by identifying disposition-manifestations with the latter. But some have been sceptical of the reality or knowability of component vectors; Jennifer McKitrick (forthcoming) presses these concerns against the conception of manifestations as contributions to effects. In this paper, I aim to respond to McKitrick's arguments and (...) to defend the metaphysical and epistemological propriety of component vectors. My strategy appeals to varying kinematic frames of reference. By transforming to the appropriate non-inertial frame, component acceleration vectors can be transformed into resultant acceleration vectors, and in such frames they become directly observable. Being a component acceleration vector and being a resultant acceleration vector are both frame-dependent properties of properties; they are not to be thought of as intrinsic or fundamental properties of an acceleration vector, but as artefacts of our frame-dependent notation for representing vector quantities. To conclude the paper, I defend the view proposed against two styles of objection. The first objection resurrects scepticism about component vectors as scepticism about fundamental component vectors. The second objection questions the need for reference frames in the explanation by invoking a 'counterfactual' theory of contributions. (shrink)

Most metaphysicians agree that powers can exist without being manifested. The main goal of this paper is to show that adherents of an unrestricted version of Dispositional Monism cannot provide a plausible metaphysical account of the difference between a situation in which a power-instance is not manifested and a situation in which a manifestation of that power-instance actually occurs unless they undermine their own view. To this end, two kinds of manifestation-relation are introduced and it is argued that dispositional monists (...) should appeal to the former in order to offer the required account. After defending the introduction of token-level-manifestation-relations against objections to their metaphysical robustness and explanatory non-redundancy, it is finally argued that their existence is incompatible with the core tenet of an unrestricted form of Dispositional Monism because they cannot be powers. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea that there might be natural kinds of causal processes, with characteristic diachronic structure, in much the same way that various chemical elements form natural kinds, with characteristic synchronic structure. This claim -- if compatible with empirical science -- has the potential to shed light on a metaphysics of essentially dispositional properties, championed by writers such as Bird and Ellis.

Disposition terms, such as 'cowardice,' 'fragility' and 'reactivity,' often appear in explanations. Sometimes we explain why a man ran away by saying that he was cowardly, or we explain why something broke by saying it was fragile. Scientific explanations of certain phenomena feature dispositional properties like instability, reactivity, and conductivity. And these look like causal explanations - they seem to provide information about the causal history of various events. Philosophers such as Ned Block, Jaegwon Kim, Elizabeth Prior, Robert Pargetter, (...) and Frank Jacksonl have suggested reasons for thinking that dispositions are causally inert. I call this the "Inert Dispositions View." According to this view, the glass's fragility was not responsible for its breaking; the man's cowardice was causally impotent as he fled. The Inert Dispositions View would call many of the explanations we give into question. By employing a disposition in an explanation, we might have thought we were giving a causal explanation of the event. Perhaps we took ourselves to be explaining an effect with some feature of its cause that was responsible for the effect. However, if dispositions are causally inert, we are explaining the event in some other way, or not really explaining it at all. The Inert Dispositions View suggests that something is amiss with many scientific explanations. If properties like conductivity and volatility are causally inert, it is not clear how appealing to them provides us with information about why certain phenomena occur. This is especially problematic if one thinks, as some do, that the fundamental properties that scientists attribute to the ultimate constituents of matter -- things like force, mass, charge, impenetrability -- are dispositional. If, as Simon Blackburn says, "science finds only dispositional properties all the way down,"2 and if dispositions are causally inert, it would seem that science does not provide us with real causal explanations. The Inert Dispositions View implies that there is something amiss with psychological explanations as well. At least some psychological states are dispositional -- being courageous or shy, being such that you would accept a drink if you were offered one. On some views, all mental states are like dispositions, since having a mental state is a matter of having some brain state or other that performs a certain causal role. If mental properties are relevantly similar to dispositions, and dispositions are inert, then mental properties make no difference to what a body does. However, it is natural to think that my believing and desiring certain things has much to do with my body moving in certain ways. It would take powerful arguments to cast these beliefs into serious doubt. In this paper, I defend the causal efficacy of dispositions against two types of arguments that l call "Analyticity Arguments" and "No Work Arguments." According to Analyticity Arguments, there is an analytic or necessary connection between a disposition and its manifestation, and this goes to show that there is no causal connection. I argue, on the contrary, that it shows no such thing. According to No Work arguments, manifestations of dispositions already have sufficient causes, and so there is "no work" for dispositions to do. I claim that these arguments rest on some questionable assumptions. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to motivate a view on dispositions according to which dispositions and their manifestations are partially identical, the DM identity theory. It sets out by extrapolating the desiderata of a dispositionalist account of properties. It then shows that the previous theories are burdened with different problems, whose common cause, so the argument goes, is the separation assumption, which almost all share. It states that dispositions and their manifestations are numerically distinct. The paper then explores whether (...) the separation assumption can be abandoned and shows that there are precursors of a DM identity theory. The DM identity theory is then outlined in its central features and it is outlined how they can fulfil the desiderata of dispositionalism. (shrink)

In this paper we develop an analysis of dispositions by means of causal Bayes nets. In particular, we analyze dispositions as cause-effect structures that increase the probability of the manifestation when the stimulus is brought about by intervention in certain circumstances. We then highlight several advantages of our analysis and how it can handle problems arising for classical analyses of dispositions such as masks, mimickers, and finks.

Contemporary emotion research typically takes the phenomenon of emotion to be exhausted by a class of mental events that are intentional, conscious, and related to certain sorts of behaviour. Moreover, other affective phenomena, such as moods, are also considered to be relatively short-term, episodic, or occurrent states of the subject undergoing them. Emotions, and other putative emotional phenomena that common-sense takes as long-lasting, non-episodic, or dispositional are things that both philosophers and scientists sometimes recognise, but that are relatively neglected in (...) comparison to emotional episodes. This thesis aims at showing that this neglect is unjustified. I will argue that there is a class of entities, 'sentiments'—broadly characterised as dispositions to undergo emotional episodes—that are irreducible to emotional episodes or collections thereof and have properties that make them a suitable target of study by the emotion researcher.In the first chapter, I argue that an analysis of caring as a pattern of emotional episodes, while more plausible than alternative, non-emotional accounts, faces a number of counterexamples that motivate the search for an account of caring as related in a certain way to emotions but as irreducible to them. I argue that a dispositional account, according to which dispositions are conceived as distinct from their manifestations, is an account for which a strong case can be made.The second chapter is dedicated to defending a modest form of realism about dispositions in general and psychological dispositions in particular. According to realism, dispositions are genuine properties that, although perhaps reducible to non-dispositional properties, cannot be re-described in terms of events only. In the third chapter, I show in what ways emotional dispositions can positively contribute to the explanation of the occurrence of emotional episodes. In the fourth chapter, I argue that caring, understood as a species of sentiment, is not to be construed as a mere disposition to produce certain events; rather, we should allow that certain dispositions are genuinely mental or psychological. Assuming realism about the mental, I argue that some dispositions are mental in a way that others are not. I suggest that being intentional is the property that makes psychological dispositions genuinely mental. I end the chapter by drawing a connection between caring and the notion of character. On my view, caring is at least a necessary ingredient of certain character traits, in particular the virtues. In chapter five, I tackle a recent form of empirically informed scepticism about character and argue, on the basis of general considerations about psychological dispositions, that the sceptic’s case is not as strong as she makes out. Finally, in chapter six, I argue that at least certain forms of sentiment, for example romantic love, can be genuinely supported by reasons, thereby suggesting a way they can contribute to the value of our lives. Overall, the aim of this thesis is to establish the respectability of sentiments in a sophisticated account of the mind. (shrink)

Given that an analysis of disposition ascription cannot be made in terms of a simple subjunctive conditional, we present a multiply qualified conditional analysis that places disposition ascription within an implicit fundamental causal conceptual typography within which a disposition ascription is embedded, framed, and understood. By placing the multiply qualified analysis within an implicit causal matrix involving a focal cause, pathway of influence, mechanism of action, contributing/partial cause, mediator, extrinsic moderator,, intrinsic moderator, and manifestation, we show how (...) this analysis evades counterexamples and arguments raised against the simple conditional analysis. We then indicate how the causal conceptual landscape provides a roadmap for unpacking and explicating parameters of the ceteris paribus qualifier to acquit the analysis of charges of being vacuous or irredeemably vague. (shrink)

This book is about the nature of dispositional properties, or dispositions. It is hard to give an uncontroversial definition of the notion of a disposition, since its very definition is one of the matters under dispute. But we can make a start with the following preliminary definition: a disposition is a property (such as solubility, fragility, elasticity) whose instantiation entails that the thing which has the property would change, or bring about some change, under certain conditions. For instance, (...) to say that some object is soluble is to say that it would dissolve if put in water; to say that something is fragile is to say that it would break if (for instance) dropped in suitable circumstances; to say that something is elastic is to say that it would stretch when pulled. The fragility (solubility, elasticity) is a disposition; the breaking (dissolving, stretching) is the manifestation of the disposition. (shrink)

To what extent can humorism be a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd? The Absurd is born from the insurmountable contradiction between one’s ceaseless striving and the absence of an ultimate resolution – or, as I prefer to call it, the ‘dissolution of resolution’. Humoristic Absurdism is the commitment to a pattern of humorous responses to the Absurd, which regard this absurd condition, as well as its manifestation in absurd situations, as a comical phenomenon. Although the humoristic disposition seems (...) promising, by virtue of humor’s recognition of incongruity and its denial of an ultimate resolution, and succeeds in countering three major objections, it falls prey to the claim that comprehensive humorism portrays as frivolous what is earnest, thereby renouncing the gravity of the desire for ultimate resolution, which is fundamental to the notion of the Absurd. In an attempt to explore alternative roles for humor in a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd, Metamodern Absurdism is suggested, which revolves around a post-ironic oscillation between humor and earnestness. In short, only in a role limited to one pole of an oscillatory pattern of responses can humor be integrated in a legitimate disposition toward the Absurd. (shrink)

A dispositional property is a tendency, or potency, to manifest some characteristic behaviour in some appropriate context. The mainstream view in the twentieth century was that such properties are to be explained in terms of more fundamental non-dispositional properties, together with the laws of nature. In the last few decades, however, a rival view has become popular, according to which some properties are essentially dispositional in nature, and the laws of nature are to be explained in terms of these fundamental (...) dispositions. The supposed ability of fundamental dispositions to ground natural laws is one of the most attractive features of the dispositional essentialist position. In this paper, however, I cast doubt on the ability of dispositional essences to ground the laws of nature. In particular I argue that the dispositional essentialist position is not able to coherently respond—sympathetically or otherwise—to Cartwright's challenge that there are no true general laws of nature. (shrink)

There has been much discussion of powers or real dispositions in the past decade, but there remains an issue that has been inadequately treated. This concerns the precise modal value that comes with dispositionality. We contend in this paper that dispositionality involves a non-alethic, sui generis, irreducible modality. Dispositions only tend towards their manifestations; they do not necessitate them. Tendency is, of course, a dispositional term itself, so this last statement offers little by way of illumination. But given our thesis (...) on the irreducible nature of dispositionality, we maintain that it cannot be explicated correctly in non-dispositional terms. Nevertheless, we all have experience of dispositionality at work, through the exercise or our own powers and the action of other powers upon us. The notion of dispositionality that we acquire is one that involves a modality stronger than pure contingency but weaker than necessity. The recognition of this distinct modal value for dispositionality is one of the biggest oversights in the growing literature in the area. Yet it is there for all to see in even the most mundane example. (shrink)

Objects have dispositions. Dispositions are normally analyzed by providing a meaning to disposition ascriptions like ‘This piece of salt is soluble’. Philosophers like Carnap, Goodman, Quine, Lewis and many others have proposed analyses of such disposition ascriptions. In this paper we will argue with Quine that the proper analysis of ascriptions of the form ‘x is disposed to m ’, where ‘x’ denotes an object, ‘m’ a manifestation, and ‘C’ a condition, goes like this: ‘x is of natural (...) kind k’, and the generic ‘ks are m ’ is true. For the analysis of the generic, we propose an analysis in terms of causal powers: ‘ks have the causal power to m’. The latter, in turn, is analyzed in a very precise way, making use of Pearl’s probabilistic graphical causal models. We will show how this natural kind-analysis improves on standard conditional analyses of dispositions by avoiding the standard counterexamples, and that it gives rise to precise observable criteria under which the disposition ascription is true. (shrink)

Externalists about epistemic justification have long emphasized the connection between truth and justification, with this coupling finding explicit expression in process reliabilism. Process reliabilism, however, faces a number of severe difficulties, leading disenchanted process reliabilists to find a new theoretical home. The conceptual flag under which such epistemologists have preferred to gather is that of dispositions. Just as reliabilism is determined by the frequency of a particular outcome, making it possible to characterize justification in terms of a particular relationship to (...) truth, dispositions are accompanied by concrete, worldly manifestations. By taking true beliefs as the result, not of certain processes but of particular dispositions, these epistemologists have attempted to respond to the numerous obstacles to reliabilism. Yet all this work has proceeded without regard to the wealth of contemporary work on the metaphysics of dispositions, making the new hope premature at best, ill-founded at worst. Combining contemporary dispositional accounts of justification with extant analyses of dispositions reveals that the latter is the case. The structural differences between epistemic justification and dispositions make it clear that not only should process reliabilism be abandoned, but the subsequent appeal to dispositions along with it. (shrink)

According to non-reductive physicalism, mental properties of the phenomenal sort are essentially different from physical properties, and cannot be reduced to them. This being a quarrel about properties, I draw on the categorical / dispositional distinction to discuss this non-reductive claim. Typically, non-reductionism entails a categorical view of phenomenal properties. Contrary to this, I will argue that phenomenal properties, usually characterized by what it is like to have them, are mainly the manifestation of dispositional properties. This paper is thus divided (...) into two parts. In the first part, after tracing a working distinction between categorical and dispositional properties, I argue that there is a form of incoherence looming behind the idea of taking phenomenal properties as categorical. In the second part, I argue in favor of the view that phenomenal properties are dispositional properties with an essential manifestation. This interpretation allows us to broaden dispositionalism so as to include the sciences of mind, thus ultimately favoring a physicalist view on the mind. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss an objection to Buck-Passing accounts of value, such as Reasons Fundamentalism. Buck-Passing views take value to be derivative of or reducible to reasons. The objection is that since there can be value in possible worlds in which there are no reasons, value must not be ontologically derivative of reasons. Thus, BP is false. In this paper, I show that by accepting a dispositionalist revision, BP can allow such worlds while maintaining that reasons are interestingly (...) prior to value, and without having to adopt any controversial metaphysics. I show this by exploring the debate over the nature of dispositions, identifying the diverse resources BP can appeal to. The paper proceeds as follows. I first explain BP. Next, I discuss a few versions of the challenge, settling on what seems to be the strongest form. Following this, I show that on many accounts of dispositions, while we should accept that particular instances of dispositions are prior to their particular manifestations, we should also accept that there is a sense in which dispositions are dependent on their manifestations. This provides BP with resources to respond to the challenge: BP can accept a dispositional revision, without committing to a theory of dispositions. Finally, I will respond to two objections. The first is about whether there are dispositions with impossible manifestations, contrary to my thesis that dispositions depend on their manifestations. The second is about whether there could be value where it would be impossible for that value to give reasons. (shrink)

Dispositions are modal properties. The standard conception of dispositions holds that each disposition is individuated by its stimulus condition(s) and its manifestation(s), and that their modality is best captured by some conditional construction that relates stimulus to manifestation as antecedent to consequent. I propose an alternative conception of dispositions: each disposition is individuated by its manifestation alone, and its modality is closest to that of possibility — a fragile vase, for instance, is one that can break easily. The (...) view is expounded in some detail and defended against the major objections. (shrink)

This paper discusses the prospects of a dispositional solution to the Kripke–Wittgenstein rule-following puzzle. Recent attempts to employ dispositional approaches to this puzzle have appealed to the ideas of finks and antidotes—interfering dispositions and conditions—to explain why the rule-following disposition is not always manifested. We argue that this approach fails: agents cannot be supposed to have straightforward dispositions to follow a rule which are in some fashion masked by other, contrary dispositions of the agent, because in all cases, at (...) least some of the interfering dispositions are both relatively permanent and intrinsic to the agent. The presence of these intrinsic and relatively permanent states renders the ascription of a rule-following disposition to the agent false. (shrink)

Objects have dispositions. As Nelson Goodman put it, “a thing is full of threats and promises”. But sometimes those threats go unfulfilled, and the promises unkept. Sometimes the dispositions of objects fail to manifest themselves, even when their conditions of manifestation obtain. Pieces of wood, disposed to burn when heated, do not burn when heated in a vacuum chamber. And pastries, disposed to go bad when left lying around too long, won’t do so if coated with lacquer and put on (...) display in a baker ’s window. Any account of what a disposition is, or of what it takes for an object to have a disposition, should be compatible with these commonplace observations. To date, I believe, no adequate account of dispositions has been given, and the aim of this paper is to defend one. (shrink)

A number of theories of dispositions to date have presupposed that dispositions are all causal: when X is disposed to PHI in circumstances C, it is because of a potential causal connection between C and X’s PHIing. Other intimate connections between dispositions and causation have been argued for: that the relation between dispositions and their categorical bases is to be understood in causal terms, for example, or even that we can explain causation in dispositional terms. These theories of dispositions are (...) all threatened by previously underappreciated cases of noncausal dispositions: cases where an X is disposed to PHI in C, but not because of potential causal connections between the manifestation conditions of dispositions and the manifestations themselves. This paper argues that there are noncausal dispositions of a number of different varieties, explains what trouble this causes many standard theories of dispositions, and discusses what lessons can be learned from these cases for the nature of dispositions. Some of the cases discussed will also cast doubt on the idea that all dispositions ground truths about potentiality or possibility. (shrink)

It is agreed on all hands that the original version of the conditional analysis of dispositions is defeated by so-called finks and maskers. Some have responded to this predicament by contending that the counterfactual on the right-hand side of the analysis should be expected to hold only when the property it purports to describe is in normal conditions. The essay argues that at the end of the day this idea must presuppose that one is able to arrive at specific descriptions (...) of the factors interfering with the manifestation of a disposition, which calls into question its utility. (shrink)

Many years ago, C.B. Martin drew our attention to the possibility of ‘finkish’ dispositions: dispositions which, if put to the test would not be manifested, but rather would disappear. Thus if x if finkishly disposed to give response r to stimulus s, it is not so that if x were subjected to stimulus r, x would give response z; so finkish dispositions afford a counter‐example to the simplest conditional analysis of dispositions. Martin went on to suggest that finkish dispositions required (...) a theory of primitive causal powers; there, I think, he was mistaken. All that they require is an improved conditional analysis, and this improved analysis can be built upon whatever treatments of properties and of laws we may favour on other grounds. (shrink)

It is common in psychiatry and other sciences to describe an individual or a type of individual in terms of its disposition to manifest specific effects in a particular range of circumstances. According to one understanding, dispositions are statistical regularities of an individual or type of individual in specific circumstances. According to another understanding, dispositions are properties of individuals in virtue of which such regularities hold. This entry considers a number of ways of making each of these senses of (...) disposition more precise while discussing a number of dangers lurking in careless use of the concept of a disposition. (shrink)

A number of authors have suggested that a conditional analysis of dispositions must take roughly the following form: Thing X is disposed to produce response R to stimulus S just in case, if X were exposed to S and surrounding circumstances were auspicious, then X would produce R. The great challenge is cashing out the relevant notion of ‘auspicious circumstances’. I give a general argument which entails that all existing conditional analyses fail, and that there is no satisfactory way to (...) define ‘auspicious circumstances’ just in terms of S, R, and X. Instead, I argue that the auspicious circumstances C for the manifestation of a disposition constitute a third irreducible element of that disposition, and that to pick out (or to ‘individuate’) that disposition one must specify C along with S and R. This enables a new conditional analysis of dispositions that gives intuitively satisfying answers in cases that pose problems for other approaches. (shrink)

Are there dispositions which not only do not manifest, but which could not manifest? We argue that there are dispositions to Ф in circumstances C where C is impossible, and some where Ф is impossible. Furthermore, postulating these dispositions does useful theoretical work. This paper describes a number of cases of dispositions had by objects even though those dispositions are not possibly manifest, and argues for the importance of these dispositions.

This thesis proposes that key, competing theories of dispositions mistake and conflate how we identify, designate and talk about dispositions and dispositional terms for the nature of dispositions and the meaning of dispositional terms when they argue that: a) dispositions are extrinsic properties of their bearers (Boyle 1666) b) all properties are purely dispositional (Bird 2007) c) all properties are purely categorical (there are no dispositional properties) (Armstrong in AMP 1996) d) dispositional and categorical properties are separate and distinct properties (...) (Prior, Pargetter and Jackson 1982). In so doing these theories make unwarranted and unsupported ontological conclusions about dispositions. The thesis traces the principal source of this confusion and conflation to a reliance on the counterfactual analysis of dispositions that wrongly encourages the conflation of a disposition (say fragility) with its manifestation (shattering). There is good reason to hold that the counterfactual analysis of dispositions is false — the truth of a counterfactual statement (such as “if x were dropped x would break”) is neither necessary nor sufficient for the truth of a dispositional ascription (such as “x is fragile”). (shrink)

Let us call dispositional monism the view that all natural properties have their identities fixed purely by their dispositional features, that is, by the patterns of stimulus and response in which they participate. DM implies that natural properties are pure powers: things whose natures are fully identified by their roles in determining the potentialities of events to cause or be caused. As pure powers, properties are meant to lack quiddities in Black's sense. A property possesses a quiddity just in case (...) its identity is fixed by something independent of the causal–nomological roles it may enter into. Paradigmatically, a categorical property is thought of as a property whose identity is fixed by a quiddity .The key question about the viability of DM as a theory of properties is how properties can be pure powers devoid of any quiddity. Bird provides an answer. According to Bird , ‘all there is to a property is a matter of second-order relations to other properties’. The second-order relation is just the relation that a disposition, its stimulus condition, and a manifestation condition bear to each other. Call this relation SR. SR is not causation or physical necessitation. The latter relations are first-order relations between concrete events. SR is a second-order relation. Its possession by properties explains why events featuring those properties can enter into certain first-order relations of causation or necessitation.Bird's thought then is this: the sense in which properties have their identities fixed purely by their causal–nomological roles is that they are relationally constituted, where the relation doing the constituting is SR. 1 This thesis of relational constitution does not imply that natural properties are themselves relations. Nothing prevents the identity …. (shrink)

Dispositions and potentialities seem importantly similar. To talk about what something has the potential or disposition to do is to make a claim about a future possibilitythe "threats and promises" that fill the world (Goodman 1983, 41). In recent years, dispositions have been the subject of much conceptual analysis and metaphysical speculation. The inspiration for this essay is the hope that that work can shed some light on discussions of potentiality. I compare the concepts of disposition and potentiality, (...) consider whether accounts of these concepts are subject to similar difficulties, and whether having a disposition or a potentiality can depend on extrinsic factors. The concept of a disposition I am working with is drawn from the recent literature in metaphysics and philosophy of science that focuses on the analysis of dispositional concepts and their role in a broader ontology. The concept of a potentiality is drawn from the bioethics literature that focuses on the moral relevance of potentialities that subjects of medical decisions mayor may not possess. Some preliminary conclusions I draw are the following: I. Potentialities are dispositions; 2. Due to problematic cases, potentiality ascriptions, like disposition ascriptions, are not reducible to counterfactual statements; and 3. Like dispositions, some potentialities can be extrinsic. Here I do not aim to draw any conclusions about the moral relevance of potentialities but rather to outline conceptual and metaphysical options available to those who seek to employ this concept. However, to the extent that these options are relevant to answering moral questions, I am skeptical about the prospects of finding a value-neutral way to choose between them. I have tried to outline a number of options regarding the nature of potentialities for those who would like that notion to play some role in their theorizing in bioethics, or elsewhere. There still are a number of decisions to make about how to explicate the concept of potentiality that is most relevant for one's purposes. How should one flesh out the associated counterfactuals, regardless of whether they hope to reduce potentiality claims to counterfactual conditionals? How should one circumscribe the relevant possible circumstances of manifestation for a given potentiality? Are the circumstances necessary for the actualization of a given potentiality to be counted circumstances of possession or circumstances of manifestation? Is the kind of which something is potentially a member a natural kind or a class whose membership is determined by convention? My anticipation, and perhaps my worry, is that these questions do not have answers that can be determined independently from the conclusions about the moral relevance of potentiality that a given theorist aims to establish. (shrink)

According to a standard characterization of dispositions, when a disposition is activated by a stimulus, a manifestation of that disposition typically occurs. For example, when flammable gasoline encounters a spark in an oxygen-rich environment, the manifestation of flammability—combustion—occurs. In the dispositions/powers literature, it is common to assume that a manifestation is an effect of a disposition being activated. (I use “disposition” and “power” interchangeably). I address two questions in this chapter: Could all manifestations be effects that (...) involve things acquiring only dispositional properties? And, is thinking of manifestations as contributions to effects preferable to thinking of them as effects? I defend negative responses to both questions. If all properties are dispositional, as the pandispositionalists claim, then any time the activation of a disposition results is something acquiring a new property, it results in something acquiring another disposition. Some worry that a vicious regress ensues (Swinburne, 1980; Bird, 2007a, 2007b: 132-46). While I believe that regress arguments can be addressed, my worry is that, on the pandispositionalist view, manifestations become unobservable. Thinking of manifestations as effects is problematic in cases where what actually occurs is not the kind of effect that the power is a power for, but rather a complex interaction of various powers. Because of this, some prefer to think of manifestations as contributions to effects (Molnar, 2003: 194-8; Mumford, 2009). I argue against this proposal on the ground that it introduces mysterious new entities into our ontology. In the end, the most plausible view is that a single kind of power can have different kinds of effects, some of which involve the instantiation of non-dispositional properties. I proceed as follows. In the first section of this chapter, I show that the philosophical concept of a manifestation is the concept of an effect. In the second section, I argue against the claim that all manifestations involve instantiations of only dispositional properties. In the third section, I argue against the view that manifestations are contributions rather than effects. (shrink)

Ordinary disposition ascriptions appear to form a semantically heterogeneous class of clauses some of which can be straightforwardly analyzed as possibility claims, and some of which resist a simple quantificational treatment. For example, while “The block is breakable” is true if the block breaks at a relevant possible world, for “The block is fragile” to be true it doesn’t suffice that the block breaks at one of the worlds that matter to the evaluation of the ascription, since the block (...) could break accidentally and yet be sturdy. The contrast has been taken to indicate that sentences like “The block is fragile” don’t introduce mere existential quantification over sets of worlds, and should be represented as claims about sufficient ratios or proportions of worlds. However, recent work has suggested that by pairing the recalcitrant DAs with modified manifestation phrases, we can generalize the standard analysis of existential DAs to the problematic examples, and state a uniform characterization of DAs as claims of possibility. The paper discusses some counterexamples to the view that allegedly non-existential DAs are covert claims of fine-grained possibility, and sketches a hybrid account combining proportional quantification with fine-grained manifestations. (shrink)

Subjects who retain their beliefs in the face of higher-order evidence that those very beliefs are outputs of flawed cognitive processes are at least very often criticisable. Many think that this is because such higher-order evidence defeats various epistemic statuses such as justification and knowledge, but it is notoriously difficult to give an account of such defeat. This paper outlines an alternative explanation, stemming from some of my earlier work, for why subjects are criticisable for retaining beliefs in the face (...) of paradigm kinds of putatively defeating higher-order evidence: they manifest dispositions that are bad relative to a range of candidate epistemic successes such as true belief and knowledge. In particular, giving up belief in response to higher-order evidence only when that evidence is not misleading would require subjects to have dispositions that discriminate between cases in which their original cognitive processes is fine, and cases in which they merely seemed to be fine. But, I argue, such dispositions are not normally humanly feasible. I show that retaining belief in putative cases of defeat by higher-order evidence is problematic irrespective of whether veritism or some form of gnosticism is true. In the end I contrast my account of dispositional evaluations with similar-sounding ideas that have been put forth in the literature, such as consequentialist views that focus on instrumental means to success. (shrink)

Dispositionality and causation are both modal concepts which have implications not just for how things are, but for how they will be or, in some sense, must be. Some philosophers are suspicious of modal concepts and would like to make do with fewer of them.1 But what are our reductive options, and how viable are they? In this paper, I try to shut down one option: I argue that dispositions are not reducible to causes. In doing so, I try not (...) to prejudice the issue by assuming a particular analysis of causation or dispositions. I make the following minimal assumptions about dispositions: they are properties of objects which have characteristic manifestations that occur in certain circumstances, and an object can have a disposition outside of the circumstances of manifestation and hence without the manifestation occurring. I think of causation primarily as a relation between events, though there can be true causal generalizations, and objects might be causes. In Section 1, I will try to clarify what it means for one kind of thing to reduce to another. I will then argue in Section 2 that dispositions do not conceptually reduce to causes, and in Section 3 that dispositions do not metaphysically reduce to causes. In Section 4, I explore other reductive possibilities, in particular that causes reduce to dispositions. (shrink)