Dispositions and Powers - Bibliography - PhilPapers (original) (raw)
A Causal Theory of Constitution and Persistence.Rognvaldur Ingthorsson - 2022 - In Miroslaw Szlatkowski, E.J. Lowe and Ontology. Routledge. pp. 290–310.details In The Possibility of Metaphysics, Jonathan hoped that a causal account of the persistence of compound entities might be forthcoming in future. I will argue that my account of causation in terms of reciprocal interaction (Ingthorsson 2002) allows us to understand the persistence and constitution of compound entities—roughly as these phenomena are standardly explained by the empirical sciences—as causal phenomena. Like other powers-based accounts, I characterise effects as the mutual manifestation of reciprocal interactions between powerful particulars. However, most friends of (...) powers follow the Aristotelian tradition in construing interactions between powerful particulars as unidirectional; one object acts while the other receives the influence. The problem is that modern science does not recognise any form of unidirectional action. It insists that whenever one object exerts an influence on another, the latter simultaneously exerts a proportional influence of the same kind on the first, but in the opposite direction. My account of causation accepts the reciprocity of causal interactions, and that allows me to include in the class of causal phenomena all physical bonds postulated by the sciences to explain the constitution of material entities and why they continue to constitute them over time. Such bonds are standardly described in terms of reciprocal interactions between constituent parts of any given compound. On my view, change, constitution, and persistence are merely different sides of the same coin: causation. (shrink)
Power collapse.Julia Zakkou - 2026 - Philosophical Studies 183 (5).details What distinguishes things that are endowed with agency from those that lack it? Some scholars in the Aristotelian tradition suggest a distinction in terms of two kinds of powers: agents have both one-way and two-way powers; non-agents, by contrast, have only one-way powers. I call this view Aristotelianism. In this paper, I examine different ways to think of one-way and two-way powers. First, I argue that the conditional analysis faces a problem that resists well-known repair strategies for conditional analyses of (...) dispositions and abilities. Second, I argue that a prominent alternative to the conditional account, as well as variations of it, yield a certain form of Megarianism when combined with Aristotelianism: for non-agents, power collapses into actuality—that is, non-agents have the power to do something iff they manifest it. This might not be a knock-down argument against Aristotelianism, but does call for a reinvestigation of one-way and two-way powers. (shrink)
Organizational Accounts of Malfunction: The Dual-Order Approach and the Normative Field Alternative.[Xabier E. Barandiaran](/s/Xabier E.%20Barandiaran "View other works by Xabier E. Barandiaran") - 2026 - Biological Theory:51-69.details The notion of malfunction is critical to biological explanation. It provides a test-bed for the normative character of functional attribution. Theories of biological functioning must permit traits to operate but, at the same time, be judged as malfunctioning (in some naturalized, non-arbitrary sense). Whereas malfunctioning has attracted most attention and discussion in evolutionary etiological approaches, systemic and organizational ones have been less discussed. The most influential of the organizational approaches (by Saborido, Moreno and Mossio) takes a dual-order approach to malfunctions, (...) as a set of functions that fit first-order constitutive norms but fail to obey second-order regulatory ones. We argue that this conception is unnecessarily complicated (malfunctions do not need to arise as a result of two conflicting orders of norms) and too narrow (it excludes canonical cases of malfunctioning). We provide an alternative organizational account grounded on viability theory. The dynamics of the traits that constitute an organism define the normative field of its viability space: sugar must be replaced at certain rate, blood must be pumped at a certain pace, etc. A trait operates normatively when its effects on the viability space correlate positively with the normative field. Three senses of dysfunctionality might be distinguished: subfunctional operations are those that positively correlate with the normative field but quantitatively fail to match the required speed; malfunctional operations are those that do not positively correlate with the normative field; and, nonfunctional traits either don’t operate at all or operate with null effect on the normative field. (shrink)
The Uniformity of Nature: Powers and/or Laws?[R. D. Ingthorsson](/s/R. D.%20Ingthorsson "View other works by R. D. Ingthorsson") - manuscriptdetails This is the Author’s Accepted Manuscript for chapter 7 in V. Seifert, S. Ioannidis, S. Psillos (eds.), Laws and Powers in the Metaphysics of Science, Routledge (forthcoming 2026). I explore the metaphysical foundation of the principle of the uniformity of nature, especially the question of whether governing laws are indispensable or whether entities with powers are enough. I argue most worries about the latter stem from the prevailing assumption that to have a power P is to manifest M in stimulus (...) condition S. The worry is that entities with powers of that kind cannot account for the various scientific laws that describe the uniformity of nature. They might account for causal laws but not functional and conservation laws. I suggest the objection can be partly answered by showing that functional laws can be understood as causal under a physical interpretation; they are only functional when seen merely as mathematical equations. However, conservation laws are not causal, which opens for an indispensability argument for governing laws. But what is the ontology of governing laws? On most accounts they are second order entities supervening on first order properties. As has recently been pointed out (Hildebrand 2020), this presents laws both as grounded on, and grounding, first order properties. Ultimately, the powerful qualities view is proposed as a way to account for the uniformity of nature without postulating governing laws. (shrink)
(1 other version)Dynamic Powers in the Spotlight: Dispositionalism, Necessitism, and Permanentism.Lorenzo Azzano & Giacomo Giannini - forthcoming - The Philosophical Quarterly.details Power theorists are divided among those who think that a dispositionalist metaphysics imbues the physical world with a dynamic and active aspect, and those who deny that. So far there has been little success in clarifying the exact nature of the two positions and their disagreement beyond trading metaphors. In this paper we suggest that one way to elucidate the idea that powers are dynamic and active is to think that a robust conception of change must play a central role (...) in power-based explanations. We use the grounding of modality as an example. We claim that friends of dynamic powers should embrace a specific version of Dispositionalism, one in which the modal facts change over time. We then argue that this view entails an especially strong version of Necessitism and Permanentism. In turn, according to an influential view in the philosophy of time, this amounts to adopting a Moving Spotlight Theory of time. We provide some details of this power-based moving spotlight theory, its features, and potential flaws. (shrink)
Dispositions and Dependence.Lisa Vogt - 2026 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 112 (2):510-526.details According to the principle No Upwards Essence, there are no cases in which some essentially depends on, yet grounds. One of the most pressing objections that afflict Dispositional Essentialism (DE) is that it violates No Upwards Essence and is therefore untenable. In this paper, I defend DE against this objection. First, I argue that DE only violates No Upwards Essence in the presence of further contentious assumptions that proponents of DE are not necessarily forced to accept. And second, I argue (...) that No Upwards Essence should not be adopted: The extant arguments in favor of the principle are wanting, and it is subject to counterexamples. (shrink)
Dancing with Foucault: On the Sources of Telic Power in Nonideal Social Ontology (12th edition).Peter Sucaet - forthcoming - Journal of Social Ontology.details This paper argues that Åsa Burman’s concept of telic power in nonideal social ontology can be deepened by integrating Michel Foucault’s account of power in both his mid-period work on governmentality and his later work on ethics. Telic power is the ability of individuals to act in relation to shared ideals. It emerges from two distinct but interrelated sources: (1) the internalization of ethical ideals through subject-formation and (2) governmentality as a structuring of conduct through rational norms and practices. To (...) capture how ideals circulate across both registers, I introduce the notion of ethical discourse – the socially embedded circulation of exemplary ideals and role models. Ethical discourse functions both as a medium of normalization and as a resource for self-formation. Drawing on feminist critiques of gendered ideals, such as postwar femininity, and a critique of neoliberalism, I argue that Foucault’s dual account of subjectivation and governmentality clarifies and expands Burman’s schema of telic and structural power, offering a richer framework for nonideal social ontology. (shrink)
Panpsychism and the Metaphysics of Properties.Nicholas Osborn - 2026 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 5 (21):1-18.details A version of panpsychism emerges from a critical overview of the metaphysics of properties. The “powerful qualities theory,” according to which all concrete properties are equiprimordially powerful and qualitative, enjoys a general advantage over other major theories of properties. But it faces some issues. Chief is the Collapse Argument: the powerful qualities theory struggles to define powerful qualities in a way that distinguishes them conceptually from pure powers. But this issue is avoided by a variant of the powerful qualities theory (...) which makes powerful qualities “powerful qualia”: essentially dispositional instances of phenomenal consciousness. I reject a few attempts to sever the link between this powerful qualia theory of properties and panpsychism. The result, and the view I endorse, is a version of panpsychism: a panpsychism of powerful qualia. (shrink)
In the Wake of the Moving-Spotlight: Surfing the Passage of Time with a Wave-Theoretic Hybrid Metaphysics.Kali Killingsworth - 2025 - Dissertation, Arizona State Universitydetails The Moving Spotlight Theory (MST) attempts to reconcile the eternalist picture of spacetime with the A-theorist’s commitment to a privileged, dynamically shifting present. Yet, MST faces longstanding challenges concerning metaphysical obscurity, motion, rate, and epistemic mismatch. Recent “wave-theoretic” successors developed by Kristie Miller and Nikk Effingham attempt to resolve these issues by reinterpreting the spotlight as an intrinsic structural feature of spacetime; either by identifying the present as a crest of causal manifestation, or as an occurrence of object constitution. This (...) thesis argues that while both models improve upon the obscurity of MST’s metaphorical spotlight, neither fully satisfies a reasonable set of desiderata needed for a defensible account of temporal passage. After identifying this need, I develop a theory dubbed the Manifest Constitutional Wave (MCW), a hybrid wave model that integrates Miller’s causal manifestation framework with Effingham’s relativized constitutional ontology, while avoiding their respective liabilities. MCW grounds passage in a dual-aspect, neutral-monist modal field whose dispositional structure reciprocally manifests both causal efficacy and object-constitution synchronously and diachronically across Cauchy surfaces intrinsic to the spacetime manifold. This avoids the need for super-time, dissolves the motion and rate problems, blocks epistemic mismatch without invoking philosophical zombies, and prevents perspectival collapse by distinguishing global modal manifestation from relativized local phenomenology. By showing that neither existing wave theory meets all criteria for a viable successor to MST, and by demonstrating how MCW addresses the full taxonomy of desiderata and A-theoretic objections, my thesis concludes that the Manifest Constitutional Wave provides the most metaphysically coherent account of temporal passage available within a wave-theoretic, eternalist framework. (shrink)
A New Argument for Compatibilism.Daniele Conti - forthcoming - Analysis.details I offer a new argument for the compatibility of free will and determinism. The argument rests on three premises, which are plausible and intuitive, or so I argue. Given that acceptance of the premises commits one to a metaphysics that combines a causal powers ontology with a Humean conception of the laws of nature, I propose calling the resulting account of free will “semi-Humean compatibilism”.
Why Essences: Spinoza.Valtteri Viljanen - 2025 - In Matias Kimi Slavov & Jan Forsman, Contemporary Perspectives and Historical Dimensions: Festschrift in Honor of Jani Hakkarainen. Tampere University. pp. 236-251.details This essay attempts to answer a simple but largely neglected elemental question: why does Spinoza endorse essences? I begin by delineating three perennial metaphysical problems, namely those of individuation, change, and persistence, after which I analyze the way in which they function as the deeply ingrained backdrop that motivates Spinoza’s essentialism, allowing him to develop a sophisticated conceptual framework on which he builds his ethics proper. I end by discussing the relationship between Spinoza’s essentialism and modality and argue that while (...) Spinoza anticipates certain contemporary lines of thought, giving an account of modality is not high on his agenda: his necessitarianism is a by-product of building a philosophical system motivated by other metaphysical concerns. (shrink)
(1 other version)Mengzian Knowledge Practicalism.Waldemar Brys - 2025 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 33 (6):1430-1447.details I argue that, for Mengzi, the kind of knowledge that features in expressions of the form ‘knowing N’, where N is a noun or a noun phrase, is not a kind of belief but is instead a capacity for intelligently performing relevant actions. My argument proceeds by showing that, first, Mengzi is committed to the view that a person knows N iff she is relevantly capable and, second, that the best explanation for this is that the kind of knowledge involved (...) in knowing N is a capacity. Finally, I motivate such a practicalist interpretation by arguing that it offers us a general but informative explanation of what it is that knowing N makes the knower capable of doing. (shrink)
Metaphysics of Science.M. Schrenk - 2014 - Acumen Publishing.details Questions concerning the metaphysical foundations of science lie at the heart of philosophy of science and are one of the most exciting and active areas of research. The metaphysics of science provides insight into how we perceive the world and the nature of our existence and is core to our prevailing epistemology. This book introduces the central questions in the metaphysics of science and in turn offers a fresh exploration of key notions such as dispositional properties, natural kinds, laws of (...) nature, causation and properties. The book also charts the modern historical development of the subject from its origins in logical positivism through to the latest research. (shrink) Remove from this list Export citation Bookmark 2 citations
The Anthropological Implications of Peirce’s Aesthetics.[Aleksandar D. Risteski](/s/Aleksandar D.%20Risteski "View other works by Aleksandar D. Risteski") - 2025 - In Miroslava Trajkovski & Emily McWilliams, Balkan Analytic Forum, Dispositions & Dispositions and Values, Conference Proceedings 10–20. X 2024. Belgrade, Serbia. Belgrade: Center for Contemporary Philosophy, Balkan Analytic Forum, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy. pp. 263-278.details In this paper, I will focus on Peirce’s views on aesthetics and some of its anthropological implications. Though Peirce never developed a systematic account of aesthetics, he was aware of its importance for ethics and logic (C.P. 8.225–8.256). The paper addresses Peirce’s notion in C.P. 5.314–315, that a “man is the thought”, from the view of his aesthetics. My intention is to show that Peirce’s views on the “qualities of feeling” and on aesthetic experience in general may have interesting philosophic-anthropological (...) implications. (shrink)
Balkan Analytic Forum, Dispositions & Dispositions and Values, Conference Proceedings 10–20. X 2024. Belgrade, Serbia.Miroslava Trajkovski & Emily McWilliams (eds.) - 2025 - Belgrade: Center for Contemporary Philosophy, Balkan Analytic Forum, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy.details Welcome to the second volume of the Balkan Analytic Forum’s proceedings, featuring contributions from BAF2: Dispositions and BAF2+: Dispositions and Values. It is a pleasure and honor to co-edit these proceedings with Dr. Miroslava Trajkovski for the second consecutive year. This volume showcases the vibrant intellectual community and the spirit of curiosity that animate the Balkan Analytic Forum. Now entering its third year, the Forum continues to foster regional philosophical community and international scholarly exchange while engaging global philosophical conversations. Rooted (...) in analytic philosophy, it also seeks to bridge traditions, welcoming approaches that connect analytic methods with phenomenological, historical, and other philosophical perspectives and traditions. Reflecting this commitment to intellectual breadth, the essays collected here engage the concept of dispositions through a variety of philosophical methods and traditions. They explore dispositions as epistemological, ontological, and ethical phenomena, theorizing their nature and function within domains including evidentiary reasoning, cosmological theorizing, virtue ethics, aesthetic experience, and philosophy of mind. The Forum’s vibrant intellectual community owes immense gratitude to Dr. Miroslava Trajkovski, whose leadership and unwavering commitment have created a collaborative space where philosophical curiosity thrives. The Balkans’ rich intellectual history reminds us that philosophical vitality often emerges at the intersection of traditions. The Forum carries that spirit forward in the work collected here. -/- Emily C. McWilliams. (shrink)
Not So Powerful Pure Powers.Joaquim Giannotti - forthcoming - Análisis Filosófico.details Abstract. Pure powers ontologies hold that all or many fundamental natural properties are completely powerful. Their nature is exhausted by the various causal, dispositional, and nomic roles they play. I discuss an underappreciated challenge against the pure powers view based on considerations from physics: How can we harmonise the complete powerfulness thesis and the manifest qualitatively structural, geometrical, and mathematical character of physical properties? I identify and assay five approaches that could answer this question: (i) eliminativism, (ii), the identity view, (...) (iii) emergentism, (iv) essentialism, and (v) prioritarianism. Any satisfactory answer to the challenge should preserve the primacy of the powerful over the qualitative, and it should avoid collapsing the pure powers view into one of its competitors. I argue that each of (i) – (v) either fails to meet such desiderata or raises new problems for the pure powers view. -/- Resumen. Las ontologías de potencias puras sostienen que todas o muchas de las propiedades naturales fundamentales son completamente poderosas. Su naturaleza se agota en los diversos roles causales, disposicionales y nómicos que desempeñan. Analizo un desafío subestimado contra la perspectiva de las potencias puras basado en consideraciones de la física: ¿Cómo podemos armonizar la tesis de la potencia completa y el carácter manifiesto cualitativamente estructural, geométrico y matemático de las propiedades físicas? Identifico y ensaya cinco enfoques que podrían responder a esta pregunta: (i) eliminativismo, (ii) la perspectiva de la identidad, (iii) emergentismo, (iv) esencialismo y (v) prioritarismo. Cualquier respuesta satisfactoria al desafío debe preservar la primacía de lo poderoso sobre lo cualitativo y debe evitar colapsar la perspectiva de las potencias puras en una de sus competidoras. Argumento que cada uno de (i) a (v) no cumple con dichos desiderata o plantea nuevos problemas para la perspectiva de las potencias puras. (shrink)
Primary and Secondary Qualities: Wright’s Account.[Ali Hossein Khani](/s/Ali%20Hossein Khani "View other works by Ali Hossein Khani") - 2025 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Iep).details It has long been a philosophical problem to explain the commonly accepted distinction between two kinds of qualities: primary and secondary. While the roots of this debate can be traced back to Plato’s Euthyphro, it was John Locke who, more clearly than others, articulated the distinction and introduced the terms “primary quality” and “secondary quality.” Similar distinctions, under labels such as “primary affections,” “primary attributes,” or “original qualities,” also appear in the writings of earlier thinkers, including Galileo Galilei, Robert Boyle, (...) and René Descartes. This article’s focus is not on the historical development of the distinction, but rather on Crispin Wright’s contemporary and well-known “Judgment-Dependent” account of this distinction, which aims to provide a criterion for determining whether a quality should be regarded as secondary. -/- Metaphysically, a primary quality is often understood as a quality whose instantiation or existence is constituted, or metaphysically determined, by something independent of human responses formed under certain conditions, such as seeing, smelling, or touching. Typical examples include shape, extension, motion, solidity, and number. These qualities are said to be objective because, for instance, if an object’s surface is square-shaped, it has this shape regardless of whether one perceives it as such. In other words, such qualities are mind-independent. Epistemologically, knowledge that an object’s surface is square-shaped is not infallible precisely because the fact that the object possesses this quality is independent of how one perceives it or what one believes about it. Therefore, even if one’s beliefs about these qualities are formed under optimal conditions, they can still be false. -/- By contrast, a secondary quality is one whose instantiation or existence depends on how one perceives, judges, or responds to it. Typical examples include color, taste, smell, and sound. Consequently, these qualities are often considered subjective. For example, whether an object is red appears to depend on how it looks or how one sees it under certain conditions. Thus, the quality of being red is said to be mind-dependent. Epistemologically, knowledge that an object is red can be infallible because the object’s having that quality depends on one’s perception: if one’s beliefs about these qualities are formed under optimal conditions, they will be guaranteed to be correct. -/- Wright’s judgment-dependent account offers a criterion for determining whether a given quality is treatable as secondary or “judgment-dependent,” as Wright prefers to call it. By employing this account, he aims to answer two fundamental questions: one metaphysical and one epistemological. If the account successfully shows that a quality is judgment-dependent, Wright can claim that facts about whether an object has that quality are metaphysically determined by the judgments of a suitable subject. The epistemological question, that is, how the subject knows such facts, is answered by appealing to the subject’s direct knowledge of her own judgments. In what follows, this account is introduced step by step and then applied to several crucial cases. (shrink)
Abilities as Modal Ties?Guyu Zhu - forthcoming - Analysis.details The idea that abilities should be understood as a modal tie between one's motivational states and one's actions is at the core of the most prominent views of abilities. I develop a novel challenge against such views of ability arguing that all these accounts cannot properly account for inabilities and compulsions.
Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement.Nancy Cartwright - 1994 - New York: Oxford University Press UK.details This book argues for the place of capacities within an grounds of meaning, not method. Yet it is questions of method that should concern the modern empiricist: can capacities be measured? Cartwright argues that they are measured if anything is. Stanford University's Gravity-Probe-B will measure capacities in a cryogenic dewar deep in space. More mundanely, we use probabilities to measure capacities, and the assumptions required to ensure that probabilities are a reliable instrument are investigated in the opening chapters of this (...) book, where the early methods of econometrics set a model. The last chapter applies lessons about probabilities and capacities to quantum mechanics and the Bell inequalities. The central thesis throughout is that capacities not only can be admitted by empiricists, but indeed must be - otherwise the empirical methods of modern science will make no sense. (shrink)
Non‐Reductive Approaches to the Metaphysics of Powers: An Introduction.Ben Page - 2025 - Philosophy Compass 20 (7):e70049.details Non‐reductive theories of powers/dispositions/capacities/potencies/potentialities are of much interest within contemporary metaphysics. There have been many discussions that attempt to explicate their nature as well as numerous others which suggest their application. Here, I focus on providing an introduction to the former, the metaphysics of non‐reductive powers, whilst briefly commenting on the latter, their applications. Therefore, the paper will offer a map of the debates and positions taken within present discussion.
A Solution to the Problem of Necessary Perfect Masks.Giacomo Giannini - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics.details Dispositionalism is the view that it is possible that p iff sometimes, something has an iterated potentiality to be such that p. Recently a formidable challenge has been raised against it: the paradox of necessary perfect masks (Vetter & Busse 2022). A mask is perfect if it guarantees that, come what may, the manifestation will not come about as long as the mask is present, and it is necessary if it cannot be removed or destroyed. This generates a contradiction for (...) Dispositionalism. -/- In this paper, I offer a novel solution to the paradox, which I call the Degree Solution. As the name suggests, it is centred around the role that degrees of potentiality play in grounding modality. My strategy to dispel the paradox comprises of three steps. First, I will argue that degrees of potentialities play a role in grounding modal truths: only non-zero potentialities ground modal truths. Then, I will argue that that degree of potentialities are extrinsic second order properties of potentialities –– and, in particular, that they depend on the modal status of both their stimuli/disposition partners and masks. I will argue that necessary perfect masks reduce the degree of a potentiality to zero, thereby preventing them from grounding a modal truth and preventing the contradiction to arise. Thirdly, I argue that there are zero-degree potentialities, that they are not ad hoc and have genuine explanatory power. They offer the theory important expressive resources to make sense of our intuitions concerning cases of ‘impossible dispositions’ (Jenkins & Nolan 2013) and perhaps also the resources to account for the truth and falsity of some non-vacuous counter-possible and counter-nomic conditionals. Necessary perfect masks are not the ‘big bad bug’ of dispositionalism. On the contrary, taking them seriously leads us to discover new and welcome features of the theory. -/- . (shrink)
(2 other versions)Dispositions.Stephen Mumford - 2003 - Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press.details Stephen Mumford puts forward a new theory of dispositions, showing how central their role is in metaphysics and philosophy of science. Much of our understanding of the physical and psychological world is expressed in terms of dispositional properties--from the solubility of sugar to the belief that zebras have stripes. Mumford discusses what it means to say that something has a property of this kind, and how dispositions can possibly be real things in the world. His clear, straightforward, realist account reveals (...) them to be less mysterious than they seem, and shows that an understanding of dispositions is essential to an understanding of properties, causation, and scientific laws. (shrink)
The Intensity of Powers.Giacomo Giannini - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.details Dispositions come in degrees. Powers theorists have suggested that this is explained by the fact that powers come in degrees, too. Degrees of powers have usually been characterised in terms of the robustness of the modal connection between power, stimulus, and manifestation. However, modal strength cannot account for all our comparative judgements between dispositions. In this paper, I argue that there is also a different kind of degrees of powers, which I dub intensity. Intensity is connected to the relation between (...) the magnitude of stimuli and manifestations. I first develop a number of models for intensity degrees; then, I argue that intensity is conceptually independent from modal strength, and that it can do important explanatory work. (shrink)
Powers, Dispositions, and Counterfactual Conditionals.Ferenc Huoranszki - 2012 - Hungarian Philosophical Review 56 (4):33-54.details We often say that persons had, have, or will have the power to do certain things. But do we have reasons to ascribe powers to inanimate objects as well? And if we do, is there any difference between ascribing a power and understanding what an object is disposed to do? Are objects’ powers dispositions in this sense? In this paper I shall argue that we need to distinguish powers from dispositions for certain theoretical purposes. Most ‘disposition terms’ in ordinary language (...) do not express causal powers; and many powers cannot be expressed by a conventional disposition term. It is true that when we say that objects are disposed to do this or that, powers are involved. But the converse does not hold because having a power does not entail that objects are disposed to do or to act upon others in certain ways. (shrink)
Algorithmic AI Consciousness.Samuel Kimpton-Nye - manuscriptdetails I argue that the thoroughly algorithmic nature of current AI systems (such as LLMs) is no obstacle to their being conscious. To this end, I present a picture on which current AI systems comprise dispositional properties which realize categorical phenomenal properties where the latter, in turn, provide the identity conditions for their dispositional realizers. This mutual ontological dependence, or, symmetrical grounding, at the heart of the proposal yields a novel picture of (AI) consciousness that avoids epiphenomenalism and is more permissive (...) regarding the specific nature/functional organization of conscious systems than has been previously suggested. This, in turn, suggests an epistemology of AI consciousness focused on investigating the high-level behaviours of AI systems rather than their low-level functional organization. (shrink)
Properties.Francesco Orilia & [Michele Paolini Paoletti](/s/Michele%20Paolini Paoletti "View other works by Michele Paolini Paoletti") - 2025 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.details 2025 update of the entry "Properties".
Action-based Benevolence.Waldemar Brys - 2025 - European Journal of Philosophy 33 (3):1154-1169.details This paper raises a new problem for the widely held view that, according to the Confucian philosopher Mencius, being a benevolent person necessarily entails being affectively disposed in morally relevant ways. I argue that ascribing such a view to Mencius generates an inconsistent triad with two of his central philosophical commitments on what it means to be a benevolent ruler. I then consider possible ways of resolving the triad and I argue that the most attractive option is to reject the (...) view that a benevolent person must be affectively disposed in morally relevant ways; instead, being disposed to perform benevolent actions is enough. (shrink)
Review of Causal Powers and the Intentionality Continuum by William Bauer. [REVIEW][Nicholas M. Danne](/s/Nicholas M.%20Danne "View other works by Nicholas M. Danne") - 2024 - Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 11 (2):299-302.details The view that powers possess counterfactual information about their possible, mutual manifestations.
Grounding and properties.August Faller - 2025 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 68 (2):592-616.details Metaphysical grounding is often presented as a relation of directed dependence analogous to causation. The relationship between causation, properties, and laws of nature is hotly debated. I ask: what is the relationship between grounding, properties, and laws of metaphysics? I begin by considering the grounding analogue of Humean quidditism. Finding it implausible, I turn to the primitive-laws account of grounding, recently defended by Jonathan Schaffer and others. I argue this view is also unsatisfactory. I then present several possible dispositionalist-like accounts (...) and characterize the notion of a power to ground. I argue for three important conclusions: (i) each property essentially confers grounding powers; (ii) non-fundamental properties can be defined structurally in a particular sense, elucidating the claim that they are ‘nothing over and above’ the fundamental; and (iii) fundamental properties play a central role in grounding the grounding facts. Finally, it is significant that, combined with a causal powers-account of causal explanation, the door is open to a unified account of the metaphysics of causation and grounding: both flow from the natures of fundamental properties. (shrink)
Quantum Properties as Potentialities in Bohm’s 1951 Book Quantum Theory.[Alexander Daniel Carruth](/s/Alexander Daniel%20Carruth "View other works by Alexander Daniel Carruth") & Paavo Pylkkänen - 2024 - In Alexander D. Carruth, Heidi Haanila, Paavo Pylkkänen & Pii Telakivi, True Colors, Time After Time: Essays Honoring Valtteri Arstila. Turku: University of Turku. pp. 256-272.details The paper examines the potentialities-centred interpretation of quantum theory developed by David Bohm in his 1951 book Quantum Theory and aims to situate it within a general ontological framework, focusing on Charlie Martin's views.
Capabilities: An ontology.John Beverley, David Limbaugh, Eric Merrell, Peter Koch & Barry Smith - 2024 - Arxiv.details In our daily lives, as in science and in all other domains, we encounter huge numbers of dispositions (tendencies, potentials, powers) which are realized in processes such as sneezing, sweating, shedding, melting. Among this plethora of what we can think of as ‘mere dispositions’ is a subset of dispositions in whose realizations we have an interest – a car responding well when driven on ice, a rabbit’s lungs responding well when it is chased by a wolf, and so on. We (...) call the latter ‘capabilities’ and we attempt to provide an ontological account of what capabilities are that is of sufficient generality to serve a variety of purposes, for example by providing a useful extension to ontology-based research in areas where capabilities data are being collected in siloed fashion. (shrink)
Powerful Qualities for Strongly Emergent Mental Properties.Joaquim Giannotti - manuscriptdetails Strong emergentists about mental properties of conscious experience typically hold that these are ontologically “over and above” and distinct in kind as compared to physical properties. Powers-based account of strong emergence offer a promising framework for elucidating the ontological “over and above”-ness of strongly emergent properties. However, they do not automatically ensure the desired non-physicality. In this paper, I argue that a conception of properties as powerful qualities has in-built resources for capturing both the ontological “over and above”-ness and the (...) kind distinctness in a unified way. I begin by illustrating powers-based accounts of strong emergence. Then I defend the superiority of a powerful qualities-based account of strong emergence over two standard approaches recovering the distinctness in kind of strongly emergent mental properties: the via negativa strategy, and the anti-materialist strategy. I conclude that a conception of powerful qualities is a surprising yet natural ally for the proponent of strongly emergent mental properties. (shrink)
The property of goal‐directedness: Lessons from the dispositions debate.Matthew Tugby - 2024 - Ratio 37 (4):313-326.details The system-property or ‘cybernetic’ theory of goals and goal-directedness became popular in the twentieth century. It is a theory that has reductionist and behaviourist roots. There are reasons to think that the system-property theory needs to be formulated in terms of counterfactuals. However, it proves to be difficult to formulate a counterfactual analysis of goal-directedness that is counterexample-free, non-circular, and non-trivial. These difficulties closely mirror those facing reductionists about dispositions, though the parallels between the two debates have been overlooked in (...) the literature. After outlining those parallels, the paper considers what goal theorists might learn from the dispositions debate. In particular, the paper discusses the need for a realist, non-reductionist account of goal-directedness, and explores the idea that properties of goal-directedness are themselves dispositions or ‘powers’ of a certain sort. (shrink)
What are the Causal Bases of Dispositions?[María Ferreira Ruiz](/s/María%20Ferreira Ruiz "View other works by María Ferreira Ruiz") & Fabian Hundertmark - 2025 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 103 (3):814-831.details Even though the talk of causal bases is commonplace in traditional and contemporary discussions about dispositions, the concept of causal bases has never been systematically investigated. This paper aims to fill this gap by developing the causal-grounding account. This account takes two roles as definitory for causal bases. First, causal bases are possible causes of disposition manifestations. Second, causal bases are metaphysical grounds of disposition instantiations. In this paper, we show that the causal-grounding account (CGA) achieves crucial distinctions (for example (...) between causal bases and manifestation conditions), captures relevant traditional features of causal bases, and can be invoked to support the causal efficacy of disposition instantiations. At the same time, CGA does not require that causal bases have to be categorical or intrinsic. This, in turn, allows us to remain neutral concerning fundamental properties, the existence of dispositional or extrinsic causal bases, multi-track dispositions, and the reducibility of dispositions. This neutrality grants the suitability of our account for different philosophical projects and discussions. (shrink)
Retiring Popper: Critical realism, falsificationism, and the crisis of replication.Robert Archer - 2024 - Theory and Psychology 34 (5):561-584.details The recent so-called crisis of replication continues to dominate psychology’s methodological landscape. It is argued here that the apparent renaissance of Popperian thinking that characterises some of the key responses to the crisis of replication is fundamentally flawed. In essence, there is a serious lack of any sustained and rigorous treatment of ontology that underpins much of the current debate about replication and Popper’s falsificationist approach. The overriding problem is that the replication debate reflects the methodologist tendency for mainstream psychologists (...) to avoid or gloss over crucial ontological questions. In contradistinction, this article (a) underscores the primacy of ontology; (b) delineates and applies a critical realist stratified ontology to psychology; (c) utilises the latter as a springboard from which to argue for Popper’s methodological “retirement”; and (d) revindicates the indispensability of context and the subtlety of psychological phenomena in arguing for the intrinsic limits of replication and experimentalism in general. (shrink)
Laws, policy predictions, and the need for genuine powers.Toby Handfield - 2009 - In Dispositions and causes. New York : Oxford University Press,: Clarendon Press ;. pp. 6-30.details Knowledge of causal laws is expensive and hard to come by. But we work hard to get it because we believe that it will reduce contingency in planning policies and in building new technologies: knowledge of causal laws allows us to predict reliably what the outcomes will be when we manipulate the factors cited as causes in those laws. Or do they? This paper will argue that causal laws have no special role here. As economists from JS Mill to Robert (...) Lucas and David Hendry stress, along recently with philosophers like James Woodward and Sandra Mitchell, they can do the job only if they are invariant under the manipulations proposed. But then, I shall argue, anything that is invariant under the proposed manipulations will do this job equally well. There seems to be nothing special about causal-law knowledge in and of itself that makes it particularly valuable for policy and technology prediction. What seems to matter is invariance alone, not causality. But what guarantees invariance and how do we know when it will obtain? Here certain kinds of causal laws do have a special place – those underwritten either by what I have called ‘nomological machines’ or by what I have called ‘capacities’. Capacities and nomological machines have a double virtue that makes them invaluable for policy planning. First, the causal laws they give rise to will be invariant so long as they obtain; and second, they typically have visible markers we can come to recognize that tell us when they obtain. The markers for nomological machines are shakier than those for capacities, though, since capacities are often tied to markers by well-established empirical laws. Capacities have their own drawback however, which is the final topic of this paper: the causal laws that are guaranteed by a capacity connect the obtaining of a capacity with its exercise. But Hume argued that no distinction can be made between the obtaining of a power and its exercise. (shrink)
An Essay on Artifical Dispositions and Dispositional Compatibilism.Atilla Akalın - 2024 - Felsefe Dünyasi 79:165-187..details The rapid pace of technological advancements offers an essential field of research for a deeper understanding of man’s relationship with artifacts of her design. These artifacts designed by humans can have various mental and physical effects on their users. The human interaction with the artifact is not passive; on the contrary, it exhibits a potential that reveals the inner dispositions of human beings and makes them open to new creations. In this article, we will examine the impact of technology on (...) human life through the dispositional compatibilism perspective of the contemporary philosopher Kadri Vihvelin, arguing for a system of metaphysics in which ontology of properties depend on dispositions. In this context, the emerging phenomenon of dispositional compatibilism opens the door to developing new philosophical ideas for evaluating the concepts of compatibilism and freedom in the context of technology. Thus, it is emphasized that although technological devices shape human life, new and unforeseen powers may emerge due to human-artifact interaction. This article will examine the idea of dispositional compatibilism by specifically considering human interaction with text-based AI applications. The ability of AI to collaborate with human thought patterns is a meaningful example of the observation of dispositional compatibilism. In conclusion, the article aims to address the effects of technology on human freedom by approaching the human-artifact relationship from a dispositional perspective. It also aims to defend the claim that technological artifacts can positively contribute to human freedom from the perspective of dispositional compatibilism. (shrink)
Types of tropes : modifier and module.[Robert K. Garcia](/s/Robert K.%20Garcia "View other works by Robert K. Garcia") - 2024 - In A. R. J. Fisher & Anna-Sofia Maurin, The Routledge Handbook of Properties. London: Routledge. pp. 229-38.details The general concept of a trope – that of a non-shareable character-grounder – admits of a distinction between modifier tropes and module tropes. Roughly, a module trope is self-exemplifying whereas a modifier trope is not. This distinction has wide-ranging implications. Modifier tropes are uniquely eligible to be powers and fundamental determinables, whereas module tropes are uniquely eligible to play a direct role in perception and causation. Moreover, each type of trope theory faces unique challenges concerning character- grounding. Modifier trope theory (...) faces challenges concerning the inscrutability of predication and the incompatibility with bundle theory, whereas module trope theory faces challenges concerning character overdetermination and a collapse into austere nominalism. These differences indicate that the modifier/module distinction divides the advantages of general trope theory and thus presents the trope theorist with a pivotal choice. (shrink)
Reality as Persistence and Resistance.Mahdi Khalili - 2023 - Perspectives on Science 32 (2):184-206.details This paper proposes a way to understand the meaning of reality (in science) on the basis of the concepts of persistence and resistance. It first supports the ontological view that reality consists of persistent potentialities, which resist being excluded from existence. A study of the cases of the Higgs boson and the hypothetical Ϝ-particle helps to illustrate how real entities persist and resist. The paper then suggests that, perceptually speaking, the results of ordinary perception or observational processes persistently appear under (...) appropriate conditions, and they resist disappearance even when the appropriate conditions are not completely prepared. Finally, it argues that, epistemologically speaking, a truthful theory resists being falsified and persists across replicable observations and experiments. (shrink)
Intention and Judgment-Dependence: First-Personal vs. Third-Personal Accounts.[Ali Hossein Khani](/s/Ali%20Hossein Khani "View other works by Ali Hossein Khani") - 2023 - Philosophical Explorations 27 (1):41-56.details ABSTRACT A Third-Person-Based or Third-Personal Judgment-Dependent account of mental content implies that, as an a priori matter, facts about a subject’s mental content are precisely captured by the judgments of a second-person or an interpreter. Alex Byrne, Bill Child, and others have discussed attributing such a view to Donald Davidson. This account significantly departs from a First-Person-Based or First-Personal Judgment-Dependent account, such as Crispin Wright’s, according to which, as an a priori matter, facts about intentional content are constituted by the (...) judgments of the subject herself, formed under certain optimal or cognitively ideal conditions. I will argue for two claims: (1) Attributing a Third-Personal Judgment-Dependent account to Davidson is unjustified; Davidson’s view is much closer to a non-reductionist First-Personal Judgment-Dependent account. (2) Third-Personal accounts rest on a misconstrual of the role of an interpreter in the First-Personal accounts; the notion of an interpreter still plays an essential role in the latter ones. (shrink)
From Dispositions to Possible Worlds: From Dispositions to Possible Worlds.Daniel Kodaj - 2024 - Erkenntnis 90 (4):1645-1664.details Dispositions (powers, potentialities) have become popular in metaphysics in recent years, and some of their proponents are advertising them as the best metaphysical grounds for modality. This project has a logical as well as an ontological side: dispositionalists offer modal and counterfactual semantics that make no use of possible worlds. I argue that, as a result of their counterfactual semantics, dispositionalists are in fact committed to entities that play the same theoretical role as possible worlds. Roughly, the claim is that (...) certain counterfactuals (ones that concern 'very large' states) force the dispositionalist to posit world-sized states that play the theoretical role of worlds. As a result, dispositionalists can (and perhaps should) make use of the mainstream framework (Kripke frames and the Lewis–Stalnaker counterfactual semantics) even if they ground all modal facts in dispositions. (shrink)
Classification and Artificial Dispositions.Andrew McFarland - 2023 - In William A. Bauer & Anna Marmodoro, Artificial Dispositions: Investigating Ethical and Metaphysical Issues. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 59-80.details This chapter sketches a taxonomy of artificial dispositions where humans play a part in the triggering mechanisms for those dispositions’ manifestations, and those dispositions that require humans for certain kinds of manifestations to be sustained. Thus the way and extent to which a disposition will count as artificial will be a matter of degree. The chapter argues for adopting an approach from the literature on natural kinds, sometimes called an “epistemic” or “pragmatic” turn, and takes aim at a traditional criterion (...) for something’s being real, i.e. mind-independence, while the proposed alternative criterion is a causal criterion. The chapter goes on to address complications for this taxonomy with potential difficulties from mimics, and a variety of dispositions sometimes purported to exist which I’ll call “apocryphal dispositions”. (shrink) Remove from this list Export citation Bookmark
Extended X: Extending the Reach of Active Externalism.Paul Smart - 2024 - Cognitive Systems Research 84 (Article 101202):1–12.details The terms "extended cognition" and the "extended mind" identify two strands of philosophical argument that are commonly subsumed under the general heading of active externalism. The present paper describes an integrated approach to understanding extended cognition and the extended mind—one that papers over the differences between these two, ostensibly distinct, forms of cognitive extension. As an added bonus, the paper describes how active externalism might be applied to the realm of non-cognitive phenomena, thereby yielding an expansion in the theoretical and (...) empirical scope of the active externalist enterprise. Both these points of progress stem from what is called the dispositional hypothesis. According to the dispositional hypothesis, extended cognition occurs when the mechanisms responsible for the manifestation of dispositional properties include components that lie beyond the borders of the thing to which the dispositional properties are ascribed. (shrink)
John Buridan on the Eucharist. With a Translation of his Questions on Aristotle’s ‘Metaphysics’ 4.6.[Boaz Faraday Schuman](/s/Boaz Faraday%20Schuman "View other works by Boaz Faraday Schuman") - 2023 - In Gyula Klima, The Metaphysics and Theology of the Eucharist: A Historical-Analytical Survey of the Problems of the Sacrament. Cham: Springer Verlag. pp. 297-319.details It may come as a surprise to readers familiar with the life and work of the Arts Master that he discusses the Eucharist at all. As he likes to remind us, theological topics are generally out of his wheelhouse. Even so, in his Questions on the “Metaphysics” of Aristotle (QM) 4.6, Buridan takes the sacrament of the Eucharist as a key data point in his discussion of Aristotle’s categories. In the Eucharist, the accidents of the bread and wine—their color, texture, (...) and so on—remain intact, but the underlying substance is transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. Accordingly, God can preserve accidents independent of their underlying substance. Therefore, for our part we can use abstract accidental terms, like whiteness, without connoting any substances, like communion bread. Moreover, it follows that, contrary to Aristotle, substance and the accidental categories are not the most general genera. Instead, being (ens) is, as Buridan concludes. Here, I trace Buridan’s thought on the metaphysical and semantic matters of substance in light of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is for him not only a theological truth, but a metaphysical and semantic datum as well. I conclude by asking why Buridan did not take any and all questions about the Eucharist to be out of his ken. What does this tell us about his attitude toward theology?This paper also includes, as an appendix, the first ever English translation of the question under discussion (QM 4.6): “Does the term being [ens] signify substances and accidents by one single concept or notion?”. (shrink)
(Book Review) Jochen Briesen: Ästhetische Urteile und ästhetische Eigenschaften. Sprachphilosophische und metaphysische Überlegungen.. Frankfurt/Main: Klostermann, 2020, 307 S.[Maria Elisabeth Reicher](/s/Maria Elisabeth%20Reicher "View other works by Maria Elisabeth Reicher") - 2023 - Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen 275 (1/2):143–159.details Jochen BRIESEN verteidigt in diesem Buch einen Dispositionalismus in Bezug auf ästhetische Eigenschaften und eine „hybride“ Auffassung in Bezug auf ästhetische Urteile: Er vertritt die Ansicht, dass mit jedem ästhetischen Urteil zwei Sprechakte vollzogen werden, nämlich ein expressiver und ein assertiver Sprechakt. Mit dem assertiven Sprechakt wird dem Gegenstand eine ästhetische Eigenschaft zugeschrieben. Die ästhetische Eigenschaft ist eine dispositionelle Eigenschaft, nämlich die Disposition, unter bestimmten (idealen) Bedingungen in einem Rezipienten einen bestimmten mentalen Zustand zu verursachen. Dieser mentale Zustand ist die (...) Manifestation der ästhetischen Eigenschaft. Der expressive Sprechakt soll genau jenen mentalen Zustand ausdrücken, in dem sich die dispositionelle Eigenschaft manifestiert. (shrink)
Hylomorphism, or Something Near Enough.David Yates - 2026 - In David Yates & Amanda Bryant, Rethinking Emergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.details Hylomorphists hold that substances are, in some sense, composites of matter and form. The form of a substance is typically taken to play a fundamental role in determining the unity or identity of the whole. Staunch hylomorphists think that this role is of a kind that precludes the ontological reduction of form to the physical and thus take their position to be inconsistent with physicalism. Forms, according to staunch hylomorphism, play a fundamental role in grounding their bearers’ proper parts and (...) that, it seems, rules out the physical grounding of form itself. I shall develop a physicalist version of hylomorphism that treats form as geometric structure and which, I shall argue, entails many of the central theses endorsed by staunch hylomorphists. Based on Shoemaker’s notion of conditional powers, I shall argue that the geometric structures of complex wholes are the conditions on at least some of the conditional powers of their bearers’ proper parts, transforming those powers into powers simpliciter. Thus, forms play a fundamental role in the dynamical evolution of the physical world, but without bestowing causal powers themselves and hence without violating any empirically plausible version of the causal closure of the physical domain. If a substance’s proper parts are taken to be individuated by their powers simpliciter, then those parts derive their identities from their places in the whole. The form of a whole thus determine the identities of its proper parts, as Aristotle claimed, but on my position, it does so without intrinsic change. (shrink)
Dated Truths Without Dated Powers.Giacomo Giannini & Donatella Donati - 2024 - Erkenntnis 90 (4):1605-1625.details Dispositionalism is the theory of modality according to which all (metaphysical and natural) modal truths are made true by some actual irreducibly dispositional property. The relationship between Dispositionalism and time is yet to be satisfactorily explored. In this paper we contribute to this task by examining how Dispositionalism deals with ‘dated truths’: propositions involving a specific time, e.g. “It might rain at 12.30”. We examine two possible accounts: the first, 'Dated Manifestations Strategy', is the idea that powers are very fine-grained, (...) and tend towards temporally very specific manifestations. We argue that such strategy should not be adopted, for it leads to unnecessary violations of ontological parsimony; it is unable to accommodate an ontology of platonic universals; and it is incapable of offering a principled explanation of the forward-looking nature of powers. We offer an alternative account, the "Duration Strategy", which relies on an independently determined arrow of time and the existence of some “duration facts” that specify how long a power takes to bring about its manifestation. We argue that the Duration Strategy is to be preferred. We then flesh out the account by exploring the connection between powers, duration facts, and processes. (shrink)
Dispositions, Virtues, and Indian Ethics.Andrea Raimondi & Ruchika Jain - 2024 - Journal of Religious Ethics (2):262-297.details According to Arti Dhand, it can be argued that all Indian ethics have been primarily virtue ethics. Many have indeed jumped on the virtue bandwagon, providing prima facie interpretations of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist canons in virtue terms. Others have expressed firm skepticism, claiming that virtues are not proven to be grounded in the nature of things and that, ultimately, the appeal to virtue might just well be a mere façon de parler. In this paper, we aim to advance the (...) discussion of Indian virtue ethics. Our intent is not to provide a catch-all interpretation of the different Indian schools. Our goal is, more modestly, to offer a theory of virtues in Indian philosophies, as a framework for theorists and interpreters who see these diverse traditions as amenable to systematic virtue analysis. Our theory grounds virtues in the reality of genuine moral dispositions and in a system of beliefs where morality is understood as transformative in nature. (shrink)