Bird argues that Armstrong’s necessitarian conception of physical modality and laws of nature generates a vicious regress with respect to necessitation. We show that precisely the same regress afflicts Bird’s dispositional-monist theory, and indeed, related views, such as that of Mumford & Anjum. We argue that dispositional monism is basically Armstrongian necessitarianism modified to allow for a thesis about property identity.

This chapter introduces and discusses the concept of Dispositional Reality. To believe that there is Dispositional Reality is to believe that (at least some) dispositional talk is not merely true, but metaphysically perspicuous. Based on the metaphysical backdrop of the previous chapters, I will show that this dispositional aspect of reality is not a thing, and thus not a property of any kind. An explicitly nominalist version of the position is tentatively introduced. Furthermore, through the distinction (...) between mere truths and perspicuous truths, the recent and much-discussed distinction between metaphysically innocent and metaphysically loaded dispositional talk will be deflated. More generally, this resulting power metaphysics without powers promises to deflate many problematic issues in recent literature, or reframe them in a more manageable fashion. This goes to show that at least some of these may be the result of an unduly reification of Dispositional Reality. (shrink)

Most recently Smart and Thébault revived an almost forgotten debate between Katzav and Ellis on the compatibility of Hamilton’s Principle with Dispositional Essentialism. Katzav’s arguments inter alia aim to show that HP presupposes a kind of metaphysical contingency which is at odds with the basic tenets of DE, and offers explanations of a different type and direction from those given by DE. In this paper I argue that though dispositional essentialists might adequately respond to these arguments, the question (...) about the compatibility of HP with DE has not been answered yet; therefore, dispositional essentialists have not yet provided an illuminating DE-friendly metaphysical account of HP. (shrink)

The paper combines a truthmaker semantics with a dispositional view of beliefs according to which they are dispositions of agents to act as if truthmakers obtain. This has a number of virtues in that it gives us (i) an exact semantics for belief reports; as well as plausible accounts of both (ii) epistemic closure and (iii) contradictory beliefs. In particular, it allows us to analyze knowledge in terms of explanatory connections between truthmakers and beliefs, on the one hand; and (...) between truthmakers and successful actions based on the belief, on the other. The analysis shows promise, not just in that it enables us to avoid Gettier-style counterexamples, but also in that it gives a contextualist solution to, among other things, the argument from ignorance and the lottery paradox in terms of contrastive explanations. (shrink)

The basic principles of dispositional essentialism do not require that the fundamental spatiotemporal relations are dispositional in nature. Nevertheless, Bird (who defends dispositional monism) argues that they possess dispositional essences in virtue of the fact that the obtaining of these relations can be characterised by the satisfaction of a certain counterfactual. In this paper I argue that his suggestion fails, and so, despite his attempt, the case of the spatiotemporal relations remains the ‘big bad bug’ for (...) the thesis of dispositional monism. (shrink)

Greed is the insatiable desire for more of the things that one values, combined dissatisfaction over what one currently has. Research found that greedy people find dishonest, unethical, and immoral behaviour more acceptable, disregard the negative outcomes for others, and are more likely to engage in such behaviours. The current research examined whether being greedy is associated with lower scores on moral emotions (guilt and shame) related to dishonest, unethical, and immoral behaviour. Study 1 (N = 397) found that (...) class='Hi'>dispositional greed was unambiguously associated with lower scores on guilt proneness, but, with sometimes higher scores on shame proneness, using various different measures of guilt and shame proneness. Study 2 (N = 550) found that greedy people expected to experience less guilt and shame after committing a moral transgression, compared to less greedy people. Exploratory analyses revealed that greedier people expected less regret when transgressing, but more regret when not doing so (perhaps related to foregoing a benefit). Also, greedier people expected more positive emotions, such as happiness and satisfaction after committing transgressions (perhaps related to rejoicing over the obtained benefit). These findings provide novel insights into how emotions interplay with immoral behaviour and greed. (shrink)

This paper describes and defends in detail a novel account of belief, an account inspired by Ryle's dispositional characterization of belief, but emphasizing irreducibly phenomenal and cognitive dispositions as well as behavioral dispositions. Potential externalist and functionalist objections are considered, as well as concerns motivated by the inevitably ceteris paribus nature of the relevant dispositional attributions. It is argued that a dispositional account of belief is particularly well-suited to handle what might be called "in-between" cases of believing (...) - cases in which it is neither quite right to describe a person as having a particular belief nor quite right to describe her as lacking it. (shrink)

This article proposes a shift in perspective within the historical study of habit—specifically, a move from the historical nominalism underlying genealogical approaches to a historical and materialist analysis inspired by Marxism. The article introduces the concept of dispositional rift, constructed by analogy with the Marxist notion of metabolic rift. However, unlike the latter—which refers to disruptions in the relationship between humanity and nature—the dispositional rift pertains to disturbances in the relationship between humans and their second nature, that is, (...) the domain of the habitual. This concept is intended to describe disruptions in two forms of the externalization of human dispositions: imitation (examined through analyses inspired by Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, himself influenced by Gabriel Tarde) and the projection of habits onto tools and machines (based on the concept from Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technology of projecting organs onto tools). The second, technological form of the dispositional rift, is presented as the mechanism underlying the real subsumption of labor under capital. This allows for the connection between the concept of habit and the concept of power understood in economic terms. (shrink)

Bird reveals an important problem at the heart of Armstrong’s theory of laws of nature: to explain how a law necessitates its corresponding regularity, Armstrong is committed to a vicious regress. In his very brief response, Armstrong gestures towards an argument that, as he admits, is more of a “speculation.” Later, Barker and Smart argue that a very similar problem threatens Bird’s dispositional monist theory of laws of nature and he is committed to a similar vicious regress. In this (...) paper, first, I construct Armstrong’s would-be argument in response to Bird. Second, I argue that his response makes his account of laws and natural properties incompatible with science. Finally, I argue that Armstrong’s strategy to address Bird’s criticism can be used, quite ironically, to defuse Barker and Smart’s argument against Bird. (shrink)

Rani Lill Anjum and Stephen Mumford have recently defended a new kind of modality, which they call ‘dispositional modality’. The key reason to adopt dispositional modality, according to them, is that causes never necessitate their effects. Anjum and Mumford’s chief argument against causal necessitation makes use of what they call the ‘antecedent-strengthening test’ : C causally necessitates E iff C & φ causes E, for any possible φ. This test, they claim, fails in all cases of alleged causal (...) necessitation. In this paper we argue that the AS-test is not the mark of causal necessitation. First, we show that if the AS-test is taken as the mark of causal necessitation it leads to either an absurdity or to circularity. Second, we argue that, given the Mill/Mackie framework of causes as INUS conditions, apparent counterexamples to causal necessitation fail. (shrink)

Dispositional essentialists are typically committed to two claims: that properties are individuated by their causal role (‘causal structuralism’), and that natural necessity is to be explained by appeal to these causal roles (‘dispositional actualism’). I argue that these two claims cannot be simultaneously maintained; and that the correct response is to deny dispositional actualism. Causal structuralism remains an attractive position, but doesn’t in fact provide much support for dispositional essentialism.

Knowledge is widely thought to entail belief. But Radford has claimed to offer a counterexample: the case of the unconfident examinee. And Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel have claimed empirical vindication of Radford. We argue, in defense of orthodoxy, that the unconfident examinee does indeed have belief, in the epistemically relevant sense of dispositional belief. We buttress this with empirical results showing that when the dispositional conception of belief is specifically elicited, people’s intuitions then conform with the view that knowledge (...) entails (dispositional) belief. (shrink)

It is common to appeal to governing laws of nature in order to explain the existence of natural regularities. Classical theism, however, maintains the sovereignty thesis: everything distinct from God is created by him and is under his guidance and control. It follows from this that God must somehow be responsible for natural laws and regularities. Therefore, theists need an account of the relation between (i) regularities, (ii) laws, and (iii) God. I examine competing accounts of laws of nature and (...) conclude that dispositional essentialism provides the most satisfactory explanation of the relation between (i), (ii) and (iii). (shrink)

I put forward several desiderata that a philosophical theory of causality should satisfy: it should account for the objectivity of causality, it should underpin formalisms for causal reasoning, it should admit a viable epistemology, it should be able to cope with the great variety of causal claims that are made, and it should be ontologically parsimonious. I argue that Nancy Cartwright's dispositional account of causality goes part way towards meeting these criteria but is lacking in important respects. I go (...) on to argue that my epistemic account, which ties causal relationships to an agent's knowledge and ignorance, performs well in the light of the desiderata. Such an account, I claim, is all we require from a theory of causality. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an alternative - the ‘dispositional account’ - to the standard account of imprecise probabilism. Whereas for the imprecise probabilist, an agent’s credal state is modelled by a set of credence functions, on the dispositional account an agent’s credal state is modelled by a set of sets of credence functions. On the face of it, the dispositional account looks less elegant than the standard account – so why should we be interested? I argue (...) that the dispositional account is actually simpler, because the dispositional choice behaviour that fixes an agent’s credal state is faithfully depicted in the model of that agent’s credal state. I explore some of the implications of the account, including a surprising implication for the debate over dilation. (shrink)

Few contemporary metaphysicians deny that things have dispositional properties. But there remains an underexplored debate about the precise metaphysical status of _dispositional properties_. According to dispositional realism, dispositions are grounded in _sui generis_ universals or tropes. In contrast, _causal nominalism_ proposes that dispositional properties are sets of entities with primitive functional or subjunctive features in common. This chapter critically compares dispositional realism and this new nominalist rival. After defending causal nominalism against some preliminary objections, it argues (...) that dispositional realism is nonetheless to be preferred on explanatory grounds. On the causal nominalist picture, individuals have no intrinsic nature. This makes it difficult to explain why individuals have the dispositions they have and why certain dispositions tend to cluster together in the way they do. In contrast, dispositional realism is able to do this explanatory work. (shrink)

Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. Dispositions: A Debate is an extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers - D.M. Armstrong, C.B. Martin and U.T. Place - on the many problems associated with dispositions, which reveals their own distinctive accounts of the nature of dispositions. These are then linked to other issues such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

Chomsky behauptet, daß das Bewußtsein die Struktur eines grammatischen Übersetzungsapparates hat, Freud dagegen betrachtet es als einen unbewußten Geisteszustand. Es wird gezeigt, wie sich diese Theorien innerhalb einer Metaphysik des Bewußtseins vereinbaren lassen, die nur bewußte Geisteszustände als grundlegend, Sinneswahrnehmungen, Bilder, Emotionen und dergleichen als sekundär, und veranlagungsbedingte Geisteszustände als tertiär bezeichnet. Hervorzuheben wäre, daß grammatische Übersetzungsapparate und unbewußte Geisteszustände, wie alle menschlichen Veranlagungen, als Eigenheiten des Körpers, welcher gewissen Gesetzen und Prinzipien unterliegt, zu analysieren sind.

Many philosophers think that it is better to understand sexual orientation as a dispositional concept. But, if so, what are its relevant conditions and manifestations? In this paper, I provide an important qualification to this question. We should be sensitive to the fact that the manifestation of a disposition can be interfered with. So, when we provide an analysis of our concept of sexual orientation, the analysis should distinguish between cases where the relevant conditions are not satisfied and cases (...) where the relevant conditions are satisfied but the manifestation is interfered with. I then argue that an adequate analysis of our concept of sexual orientation should categorize cases of internal psychological conflict as cases of interference. This last claim is significant in part because it conflicts with a prominent position in the broader dispositions literature that denies the possibility of intrinsic interference. (shrink)

From among philosophical concepts of explanation those referring to causes have been the most influential. The aim of this paper it to show that a particular kind of causal explanations, namely dispositional explanations are particularly suited to explain the workings of the world. Apart from purely philosophical arguments, I claim that the view treating dispositions as important elements of the basic ontology of nature is in line with the Christian worldview and the ways God impacts the world. Also, this (...) paper shows that dispositional explanations are not only appropriate in the domains studied by natural sciences but also in the ones being under investigation in social sciences, and thus the case of economics. (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)

Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. _Dispositions: A Debate_ is an extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers - D.M. Armstrong, C.B. Martin and U.T. Place - on the many problems associated with dispositions, which reveals their own distinctive accounts of the nature of dispositions. These are then linked to other issues such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

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 (...) class='Hi'>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 study examined whether parents’ attribution of their child’s emotions (internalizing, externalizing) to dispositional causes is associated with children’s problem behaviour (internalizing, externalizing). The mediating roles of parents’ emotion-dismissing and -coaching reactions and the moderating role of child’s gender was also examined. Participants were 241 US parents with a child (43% girls) between the ages of 5 and 7. Parents were presented with vignettes in which a gender-neutral child displayed internalizing and externalizing emotions and were asked to imagine their (...) own child in the vignettes. Subsequently, parents indicated whether they attributed the child’s emotion to dispositional causes and the likelihood of reacting in an emotion-dismissing and -coaching way in each situation. Child problem behaviour was measured using the CBCL. Results show that parental dispositional attributions were associated with child internalizing and externalizing problems, and this association was consistently mediated by emotion-dismissing reactions. The association between parental dispositional attributions and emotion-dismissing, as well as its indirect effect on child internalizing problems, was stronger for boys than for girls, whereas the indirect effect via emotion-coaching was stronger for girls than for boys. Thus, the parental attribution process seems to be different for boys and girls. (shrink)

As we understand them, dispositions are relatively uncontroversial 'predicatory' properties had by objects disposed in certain ways. By contrast, powers are hypothetical 'ontic' properties posited in order to explain dispositional behaviour. Chapter 1 outlines this distinction in more detail. Chapter 2 offers a summary of the issues surrounding analysis of dispositions and various strategies in contemporary literature to address them, including one of our own. Chapter 3 describes some of the important questions facing the metaphysics of powers including why (...) they're worth positing, and how they might metaphysically explain laws of nature and modality. (shrink)

Dispositional essentialism is a non-Humean view about the essences of certain fundamental or natural properties that looms large in recent metaphysics , not least because it promises to explain neatly the natural modalities such as laws of nature, counterfactuals, causation and chance. In the current paper, however, several considerations are presented that indicate a serious tension between its essentialist core thesis and natural “metaphysical” interpretations of its central explanatory claims.

Properties correspond to sets of objects. Facts are mind-independent entities that are constituted by objects and properties and are occasionally expressed by true claims. Counterfactual facts are occasionally expressed by true counterfactual claims, and like other facts, they have properties and objects as constituents. A disposition is a property that corresponds to a set of objects which are constituents of certain kinds of counterfactual facts; in other words, a disposition corresponds to a set of objects of which a certain kind (...) of counterfactual holds. To attribute a dispositional predicate to something is to roughly indicate the kind of counterfactuals that one believes to hold of it. Counterfactuals hold of things for a variety of reasons, one of those reasons being because the thing has a power, where a power is a kind of disposition. (shrink)

This anthology consists of a collection of papers on the nature of dis positions and the role of disposition concepts in scientific theories. I have tried to make the collection as representative as possible, except that problems specifically connected with dispositions in various special sciences are relatively little discussed. Most of these articles have been previously published. The papers by Mackie, Essler and Trapp, Fetzer (in Section 11), Levi, and Tuomela appear here for the first time, and are simultaneously published (...) in Synthese 34, No. 4, which is a special issue on dispositions. Of the previously published material it should be emphasized that the papers by Hempel and Fisk have been extensively revised specially for this anthology. The papers are grouped in four sections, partlyon the basis of their content. However, due to the complexity of the issues involved, there is considerable overlap in content between the different sections, especially between Sections land 11. I wish to thank Professors James Fetzer and Carl G. Hempel for helpful advicc in compiling this anthology. (shrink)

The central theme of this paper is the dispositional/categorical distinction that has been one of the top agendas in contemporary metaphysics. I will first develop from my semantic account of dispositions what I think the correct formulation of the dispositional/categorical distinction in terms of counterfactual conditionals. It will be argued that my formulation does not have the shortcomings that have plagued previously proposed ones. Then I will turn my attention to one of its consequences, the thesis that (...) class='Hi'>dispositional properties are not susceptible to intrinsic finks. This thesis was first advanced by me and has ever since stirred up a big controversy, endorsed by some philosophers like Handfield, Bird, and Cohen but rejected by others like Clarke and Fara. Against this background, I will remedy my defense of the impossibility of intrinsically finkable dispositions and then refute some of apparently powerful criticisms of it. And so the upshot is that it is much more reasonable to hold on to the thesis that dispositions are intrinsically unfinkable. This will have the effect of putting the dispositional/categorical distinction on firmer and more secure ground. (shrink)

This is a contribution to the encyclopedia of systems biology on dispositions.

Dispositional Essentialism, as commonly conceived, consists in the claims that at least some of the fundamental properties essentially confer certain causal-nomological roles on their bearers, and that these properties give rise to the natural modalities. As such, the view is generally taken to be committed to a realist conception of properties as either universals or tropes, and to be thus incompatible with nominalism as understood in the strict sense. Pace this common assumption of the ontological import of Dispositional (...) Essentialism, the aim of this paper is to explore a nominalist version of the view, Austere Nominalist Dispositional Essentialism. The core features of the proposed account are that it eschews all kinds of properties, takes certain predicative truths as fundamental, and employs the so-called generic notion of essence. As I will argue, the account is significantly closer to the core idea behind Dispositional Essentialism than the only nominalist account in the vicinity of Dispositional Essentialism that has been offered so far—Ann Whittle’s Causal Nominalism—and is immune to crucial problems that affect this view. (shrink)

According to a persistent objection against metaethical expressivism, this view is committed to a strong version of internalism which is unable to account for cases where a person’s moral judgment and motivation come apart. Recently, leading expressivists have argued that they can meet this objection by maintaining that moral judgments consist in non-cognitive states that motivate in normal conditions. In this paper, it is maintained that an important dimension of internalism has, on the whole, gone unnoticed: Internalist claims vary depending (...) on whether moral judgments and motivation are understood as dispositional states or occurrent states. This variation can be invoked in an argument showing that expressivists are indeed committed to versions of internalism that make it impossible to account for cases in which moral judgment and motivation diverge. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility of developing a hybrid version of dispositional theories of aesthetic values. On such a theory, uses of aesthetic predicates express relational second-order dispositional properties. If the theory is not absolutist, it allows for the relativity of aesthetic values. But it may be objected to on the grounds that it fails to explain disagreement among subjects who are not disposed alike. This paper explores the possibility of adapting recent proposals of hybrid expressivist theories for (...) moral predicates to the case of aesthetic predicates. Hybrid expressivist theories make no explicit commitment about the kind of property expressed by the predicate, but make explicit commitments to implicated (or presupposed)expressive content. It is argued that dispositionalism about the properties expressed by aesthetic predicates, combined with expressive implicatures (or presuppositions), can account for aesthetic disagreements even in cases where subjects are not relevantly alike. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I argue that Mary Shepherd has a dispositional understanding of God, matter, and finite minds. That is, she understands all of them as dispositions or powers (two terms I will use interchangeably). Second, I aim to shed light on the emanationist picture suggested by Shepherd’s remarks in her second book Essays on the Perception of an External Universe (EPEU). For instance, Shepherd calls ‘animate’ and ‘inanimate nature’ a divine ‘emanation’ (EPEU 190) (...) and describes finite beings as ‘outgoings’ that come ‘forth’ from God (EPEU 189, 190, 219). Because of this emanationist language, in conjunction with Shepherd’s dispositional understanding of God, matter, and mind, it is helpful to use Jennifer McKitrick’s (2003) distinction between bare and based disposition. For Shepherd’s remarks suggest that the powers that are matter and finite minds are akin to based dispositions because they are caused by and subsist in virtue of God. But since God – ‘THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE’ (ERCE 119) ‘who began not to be’ (EPEU 219) is also a power, the Deity functions similarly to a bare or ungrounded disposition, while matter and finite minds are similar to a ‘based dispositions’ (McKitrick 2003). (shrink)

Jennifer McKitrick offers an opinionated guide to the philosophy of dispositions. In her view, when an object has a disposition, it is such that, if a certain type of circumstance were to occur, a certain kind of event would occur. Since this is very common for this to be the case, dispositions are an abundant and diverse feature of our world.

Dispositional realism, as we shall use the term, is a non-reductive, anti-Humean approach to dispositions which says that natural properties confer certain dispositions as a matter of metaphysical necessity. A strong form of dispositional realism is known as pan-dispositionalism, which is typically interpreted as the view that all natural properties are identical with, or essentially dependent on, dispositions. One of the most serious problems facing pan-dispositionalism is the conceivability objection, and the solution commonly offered by essentialists employs the (...) so-called redescription strategy. In this paper I argue that this orthodox strategy fails in certain cases. This argument, in turn, shows that essentialist forms of dispositional realism are implausible. The discussion points us towards an improved version of dispositional realism. According to this new version, natural properties are not essentially dispositional but necessarily ground dispositions. (shrink)

Richard Bradley and others endorse Reverse Bayesianism as the way to model awareness growth. I raise a problem for Reverse Bayesianism—at least for the general version that Bradley endorses—and argue that there is no plausible way to restrict the principle that will give us the right results. To get the right results, we need to pay attention to the (dispositional) attitudes that agents have towards propositions of which they are unaware. This raises more general questions about how awareness growth (...) should be modelled. Classical Bayesian decision theory leaves no room for awareness growth. But in his book Decision Theory with a Human Face (Bradley 2017), Richard Bradley aims to give a decision theory for real agents, and it seems that real agents can grow in awareness. For example, I might be alerted to a possible state of affairs that had not occurred to me before; or I might discover that there is a further option available to me that I had not previously considered. Bradley gives an account of what rationality requires of agents without full awareness, and how rational agents’ credal states can change when they grow in awareness. In this paper I raise a problem for this account, and argue that we need to model awareness growth quite differently, taking into account an agent’s dispositional attitudes towards propositions of which (s)he is unaware. (shrink)

Gettier's reminder that knowledge cannot be identified with justified true belief started a heated debate about what knowledge really is.

Some dispositions have causal bases or grounding properties. However, ungrounded dispositions do not have causal bases. Ungrounded dispositions are also known as powers, baseless dispositions, and bare dispositions. Ungrounded dispositions are not supplanted by mechanistic explanations, for even mechanistic explanations ultimately reference dispositions. While some argue that citing dispositions does not really explain anything, dispositions can in fact figure in adequate explanations. Furthermore, scientific explanations reference dispositions with no known grounds. This lends some support for the view that ungrounded dispositions (...) are metaphysically possible. Philosophical arguments based on multiple realizability or the demand for truth-makers fail to show that ungrounded dispositions are impossible. (shrink)