Do conceivability arguments work against physicalism if properties are causal powers? By considering three different ways of understanding causal powers and the modality associated with them, I will argue that most, if not all, physicalist powers theorists should not be concerned about the conceivability argument because its conclusion that physicalism is false does not hold in their favoured ontology. I also defend specific powers theories against some recent objections to this strategy, arguing that the conception of properties as powerful blocks (...) conceivability arguments unless a rather implausible form of emergence is true. (shrink)

Absences, i.e., agential omissions and forbearances, but also ‘natural’ negative states and events beyond the sphere of human agency, seem to be part and parcel of the real world. Yet, it is exactly the putative reality of absences that strikes many philosophers as utterly mysterious, if not entirely unintelligible. As a promising approach towards solving the problem of real absences, I wish to explore the idea that absences are latent potentialities. To this end, I shall investigate what potentialities are, what (...) kinds of potentiality exist, and what it means for a potentiality to remain latent. I will also discuss whether the framework of latent potentiality is able to meet the extensional constraints imposed on the theory of absences by our intuitions about the reach of negative acts and events, i.e., whether latent potentialities can account for all real absences. (shrink)

Actualists of a certain stripe—dispositionalists—hold that metaphysical modality is grounded in the powers of actual things. Roughly: p is possible iff something has, or some things have, the power to bring it about that p. Extant critiques of dispositionalism focus on its material adequacy, and question whether there are enough powers to account for all the possibilities we intuitively want to countenance. For instance, it seems possible that none of the actual contingent particulars ever existed, but it is impossible to (...) explain this by appealing to the powers of some actual thing or things to bring it about. I argue instead that dispositionalism, in the simple form championed by its proponents, is formally inadequate. Dispositionalists interpret the modal operators as simple existential claims about powers, but if we interpret the operators that way, the resulting system of modal logic is too weak to capture metaphysical modality. I argue that we can modify the standard dispositionalist interpretations of the operators to secure formal adequacy, but at the cost of accepting that not all modality is grounded in powers. This, I shall suggest, is not a bad thing—the resulting theory still has powers at its core and has certain attractive features, in addition to formal adequacy, that the standard theory lacks. (shrink)

The principle of plenitude says that every material object coincides with abundantly many further objects that differ in their modal profiles. A necessarily unmanifested disposition is a disposition that necessarily does not manifest. This paper argues that if the principle of plenitude holds, then there are some necessarily unmanifested dispositions. These necessarily unmanifested dispositions will be argued to evade some objections against the cases of necessarily unmanifested dispositions put forward by Carrie Jenkins and Daniel Nolan.

Modal dispositionalists hold that dispositions provide the foundation of metaphysical necessity and possibility. According to the kind of modal dispositionalism that can be found in the present literature, a proposition p is possible just in case some things are disposed to be such that p. In the first part of this paper I show that combining this classic form of dispositionalism with the assumptions that the laws of nature are necessary and deterministic and that all dispositions are forward-looking in time (...) leads to the unattractive conclusion that every truth is necessary. I argue that the classic dispositionalist should be troubled by this result and in the second part of the paper I suggest a novel variant of dispositionalism that avoids it. This extended form of dispositionalism allows that some propositions are only indirectly underwritten by dispositions. (shrink)

Over the last half century, possible worlds have bled into almost every area of philosophy. In the metaphysics of modality, for example, philosophers have used possible worlds almost exclusively to illuminate discourse about metaphysical necessity and possibility. But recently, some have grown dissatisfied with possible worlds. Why are horses necessarily mammals? Because the property of being a horse bears a special relationship to the property of being a mammal, they say. Not because every horse is a mammal in every possible (...) world. Some have recently begun to use properties to develop rivals to possible worlds semantics which may someday compare in formal power and capture the different systems of modal logic. In this paper, I do two things. I first offer a quick primer on possible worlds semantics. Then I discuss three rivals and the work they have left to do. (shrink)

Dispositionality is a modal notion of a certain sort. When an object is said to have a disposition, we typically understand this to mean that under certain circumstances, the object would behave in a certain way. For instance, a fragile object is disposed to break when dropped onto a concrete surface. It need not actually break - its being fragile has implications that, so to speak, point beyond the actual world. According to dispositionalism, all modal features of the world may (...) be accounted for in terms of its dispositional features. My aim in this paper is to assess the prospects for dispositionalism by examining the most promising theories. Sections 1 and 2 clarify the assumptions and desiderata of a successful dispositionalist theory of modality. Section 3 introduces the principles governing the dispositionalist theories that apparently meet the desiderata. Sections 4 through 6 show that dispositionalism nonetheless faces three problems: while dispositions help account for modal features of the world that are local, diachronic, or gradable, they cannot account for certain modal features of the world that are global, synchronic, or absolute. I end by discussing the costs of preserving dispositionalism. (shrink)

Modal primitivists hold that some modal truths are primitively true. They thus seem to face a special epistemological problem: how can primitive modal truths be known? The epistemological objection has not been adequately developed in the literature. I undertake to develop the objection, and then to argue that the best formulation of the epistemological objection targets all realists about modality, rather than the primitivist alone. Furthermore, the moves available to reductionists in response to the objection are also available to primitivists. (...) I conclude by suggesting that extant theories of the epistemology of modality are not sensitive to the question of primitivism versus reductionism. (shrink)

This paper surveys recent "new actualist" approaches to modality that do without possible worlds and locate modality squarely in the actual world. New actualist theories include essentialism and dispositionalism about modality, each of which can come in different varieties. The commonalities and differences between these views, as well as their shared motivations, are layed out.

Modal dispositionalism is the view that possibilities are a matter of the dispositions of individual objects: it is possible that p if and only if something has a disposition for p to be the case. We raise a problem for modal dispositionalism: nothing within the theory rules out that there could be necessary, perfect masks, which make the manifestation of a disposition impossible. Unless such necessary perfect masks are ruled out, modal dispositionalism runs the risk of failing to provide a (...) sufficient condition for possibility, and indeed of engendering contradictions. But to rule them out, modal dispositionalism would have to revise a crucial tenet of the view, its localism. (shrink)

Dispositionalists try to provide an account of modality—possibility, necessity, and the counterfactual conditional—in terms of dispositions. But there may be a tension between dispositionalist accounts of possibility on the one hand, and of counterfactuals on the other. Dispositionalists about possibility must hold that there are no impossible dispositions, i.e., dispositions with metaphysically impossible stimulus and/or manifestation conditions; dispositionalist accounts of counterfactuals, if they allow for non-vacuous counterpossibles, require that there are such impossible dispositions. I argue, first, that there are in (...) fact no impossible dispositions; and second, that the dispositionalist can nevertheless acknowledge the non-vacuity of some counterpossibles. The strategy in the second part is one of ‘divide and conquer’ that is not confined to the dispositionalist: it consists in arguing that counterpossibles, when non-vacuous, are read epistemically and are therefore outside the purview of a dispositional account. (shrink)

This paper explores the prospects for dispositional accounts of abilities. According to so-called new dispositionalists, an agent has the ability to Φ iff they have a disposition to Φ when trying to Φ. We show that the new dispositionalism is beset by some problems that also beset its predecessor, the conditional analysis of abilities, and bring up some further problems. We then turn to a different approach, which links abilities not to motivational states but to the notion of success, and (...) consider ways of implementing that approach. Our results suggest that there are principled disanalogies between abilities and disposition which prevent any dispositional account of abilities from succeeding. (shrink)

According to essentialism, metaphysical modality is founded in the essences of things, where the essence of a thing is roughly akin to its real definition. According to potentialism (also known as dispositionalism), metaphysical modality is founded in the potentialities of things, where a potentiality is roughly the generalized notion of a disposition. Essentialism and potentialism have much in common, but little has been written about their relation to each other. The aim of this paper is to understand better the relations (...) between essence and potentiality, on the one hand, and between essentialism and potentialism, on the other. It is argued, first, that essence and potentiality are not duals but interestingly linked by a weaker relation dubbed ‘semi-duality’; second, that given this weaker relation, essentialism and potentialism are not natural allies but rather natural competitors; and third, that the semi-duality of essence and potentiality allows the potentialist to respond to an important explanatory challenge by using essentialist resources without thereby committing to essentialism. (shrink)

Dispositionalism about modality is the view that metaphysical modality is a matter of the dispositions possessed by actual objects. In a recent paper, David Yates has raised an important worry about the formal adequacy of dispositionalism. This paper responds to Yates’s worry by developing a reply that Yates discusses briefly but dismisses as ad hoc: an appeal to a ’plenitude of powers’ including such powers as the necessarily always manifested power for 2+2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} (...) \begin{document}$$2+2$$\end{document} to be 4. I argue that the reply is not ad hoc at all, by defending the metaphysics of dispositions that should underly it. I then argue, first, that a proper understanding of dispositions’ degrees provides us with an argument for such necessarily always manifested dispositions; second, that all the natural attempts to block that argument can be resisted without being ad hoc; and third, that pragmatic considerations explain our intuitive resistance to the ascription of necessarily always manifested dispositions. Dispositionalism can be formally adequate after all. (shrink)

A standard conception of metaphysical modality accepts that Some de re modal claims are true, These should be understood in terms of a possible worlds semantics, and There is trans-world identity. For instance, it seems true that Humphrey could have won the election. In possible worlds speak, we say that there exists a possible world where Humphrey wins the election. Furthermore, had that possibility been actualized instead of this one, Humphrey—our Humphrey, the very same man—would still have existed. Here, I (...) argue that this way of understanding de re modal claims, in conjunction with certain other plausible assumptions, entails that The World is a necessary being. (shrink)

Truthmakers, truth conditions, and analyses are closely related, but distinct in rather important ways. A failure to properly appreciate their differences has led to some confusion regarding the role that possible worlds ought to play with respect to modality. Those philosophers who initially proposed the existence of possible worlds were understood as providing an analysis of modality. More recently, many have interpreted them as providing modal truthmakers. But, possible worlds are only suited to serve as truth conditions for modal truths. (...) My goals are as follows: First, to dispel this confusion by detailing the differences between these three concepts. Second, to apply the lesson learned to the famous Humphrey objection against possible worlds. While this objection, if successful, does undermine Lewisian modal realism, it only partially undermines ersatzism, and leaves available a route by which ersatzers may avoid the objection altogether. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently suggested that truths about unactualized metaphysical possibilities are true in virtue of the existence of actual objects and their dispositional properties. For example, on this view, it is true that unicorns are metaphysically possible only if some actual object has (or had) the disposition to bring it about that there are unicorns. This view, a dispositionalist version of what has recently been dubbed “The New Actualism,” is a proposal about the nature of modal truthmakers. But, I (...) will argue, this proposal entails much more than that. Here, I will demonstrate that, if the modal truthmakers are the dispositional properties of actual objects, then either (i) there exists one or more causally potent necessary beings, or (ii) necessarily, there exists an actually infinite number of contingent beings. (shrink)

In a growing number of papers, one encounters arguments to the effect that certain philosophical views are objectionable because they would imply that there are necessary truths for whose necessity there is no explanation. That is, they imply that there are propositions p such that (a) it is necessary that p, but (b) there is no explanation why it is necessary that p. For short, they imply that there are “brute necessities.” Therefore, the arguments conclude, the views in question should (...) be rejected in favor of rival views under which the necessities would be explained. This style of argument raises a number of important and difficult questions. Do necessary truths really require explanation? Are they not paradigms of truths that either need no explanation or automatically have one, being in some sense self‐explanatory? If some necessary truths do require or admit of explanation, what types of explanation, are available? Are some necessary truths explained by other necessary truths? Are some necessary truths self‐explanatory? Are all necessary truths either self‐explanatory or explained by others? Or are there some necessary truths that are truly brute? This article surveys several representative arguments from brute necessity as well as a variety of answers to the questions above, noting their bearing on arguments from bruteness. (shrink)

A popular version of anti-Humeanism is one that views fundamental properties as being irreducibly dispositional in nature, and it is a view to which I am attracted. Proponents of this view typically object to Humean regularity theories of laws on the basis that they do not explain why our world is regular rather than chaotic from moment to moment. It is thought that, for this reason, Humeanism does not provide firm enough foundations for induction. However, in this paper I argue (...) that it is far from clear how these anti-Humeans can themselves explain this regularity. This is because it is far from clear how they can explain why the entities in our world do not change their dispositional properties arbitrarily over time. This is a neglected problem, which I call the retention problem. In an attempt to solve this problem, several naturalistic explanations of retention are explored. Unfortunately, none of these explanations is free of problems, showing that dispositional forms of anti-Humeanism may not have as many advantages as some have assumed where the problem of induction is concerned. (shrink)

I articulate a Global Best-System Account (GBSA) of laws of nature along broadly Mill–Ramsey–Lewis lines. The guiding idea is that the job of laws is to capture real patterns across time—where a pattern is real if it allows to compress information about matters of particular fact. The GBSA’s key ingredient is a definition of ‘best system’ in terms of a ranking method that meets a number of desiderata: it is rigorously defined; it outputs the ranking based on the candidate systems’ (...) epistemic virtues; it is objective, in that the output does not depend on one’s choice of basic concepts; it avoids two trivialization results (by Lewis, and Arrow-Okasha); and it does not appeal to naturalness, or other metaphysical notions in that vicinity. Although the GBSA is independent of the controversial thesis of Humean Supervenience, it satisfies the weaker thesis that laws of nature supervene on the total physical state of the world. Moreover, the resulting notion of lawhood is hyperintensional, unlike the neighboring notion of nomological necessity. Finally, GBSA-laws do not track naturalness, contra the Lewisian orthodoxy. (shrink)

On a highly influential way to think of modality, that I call ‘relationalism’, the modality of a state is explained by its being composed of properties, and these properties being related by a higher-order and primitively modal relation. Examples of relationalism are the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong account of natural necessity, many dispositional essentialist views, and Wang’s incompatibility primitivism. I argue that relationalism faces four difficulties: that the selection between modal relations is arbitrary, that the modal relation cannot belong to any logical order, (...) that to explain how the modal relation can relate properties of different adicities additional ideological complexity has to be introduced, and that not all modal constraints are relational. From the discussion, I will extract desiderata for a successor theory of modality. (shrink)

As Price (2009) famously mused, if a philosopher were to be magically transported, perhaps through means of time travel, from the 1950s to the modern day, they would indeed be shocked by the resurgence of metaphysics in the analytic tradition. Most of all, perhaps, they would be shocked by the popularity of power metaphysics. What a strange item to have in a philosopher’s curriculum, they might think: after all, didn’t David Hume claim that “[t]here are no ideas which can occur (...) in metaphysics more obscure and uncertain than those of power, force, energy, or necessary connection”? Indeed, much has changed since then. At the pain of using overly vague terminology, we can call “power metaphysics” the subdiscipline of metaphysics interested in the development and evaluation of a family of positions which we will refer to under the umbrella term of “dispositionalism”. According to dispositionalists, the world we inhabit is also populated by genuine and irreducible powers, dispositions, and capacities of objects. (shrink)

Truthmaker theorists hold that there is a metaphysically explanatory relation that holds between true claims and what exists. While some critics try to provide counterexamples to truthmaker theory, that response quickly leads to a dialectical standoff. The aim of this paper is to move beyond that standoff by attempting to undermine some standard arguments for truthmaker theory. Using realism about truth and a more pragmatic account of explanation, I show how some of those arguments can be undermined.

This paper seeks to explicate and analyze an alternative response to fine-tuning arguments from those that are typically given—namely, design or brute contingency. The response I explore is based on necessity, the necessitarian response. After showing how necessity blocks the argument, I explicate the reply I claim necessitarians can give and suggest how its three requirements can be met: firstly, that laws are metaphysically necessary; secondly, that constants are metaphysically necessary; and thirdly, that the fundamental properties that determine the laws (...) and constants are necessary. After discussing each in turn, I end the paper by assessing how the response fares when running the fine-tuning argument in two ways, as an inference to best explanation and as a Bayesian argument. (shrink)

Although contemporary powers metaphysics largely understands itself as a metaphysical realist undertaking, recently powers have come to the surface also within an idealist context. This paper aims to characterize and motivate an absolute idealist conception of powers. I compare realist and idealist powers metaphysics in their respective responses to Humean scepticism concerning powers, thereby motivating the claim that the very idea of a power is actually best understood as an idealist idea. I continue to characterize the absolute idealist’s understanding of (...) power, for which it is necessary to see that the content of her power notion is inseparable from the way in which she arrives at that notion. I close with a brief reflection on the absolute idealist’s understanding of the power of thought, which is where idealist and realist powers metaphysics diverge most radically. (shrink)

The article deals with the charge of irrelevance levelled against D. Lewis’s modal realism, notably known as a reductionist account of modality. The charge of irrelevance is apparently one of the most popular objections to modal realism though it often seems that the debate surrounding this charge is not very fruitful since in this context it is common to appeal, implicitly or explicitly, to different criteria for theory choice. As a result, the article deals with the problem in a slightly (...) different manner. The article addresses arguments aimed to show that, contrary to what is often stated, modal realism does not violate our pre-theoretical intuitions, as well as arguments aimed to respond to the charge of irrelevance without appealing to criteria for theory choice at all but providing different reasons instead. However, the aim of this article is to show that all these arguments are rather unconvincing. (shrink)

In debates concerning the consequence argument, it has long been claimed that [McKay, T. J., and D. Johnson. 1996. “A Reconsideration of an Argument Against Compatibilism.” Philosophical Topics 24 (2): 113–122] demonstrated the invalidity of rule (β). Here, I argue that their result is not as robust as we might like to think. First, I argue that McKay and Johnson's counterexample is successful if one adopts a certain interpretation of ‘no choice about’ and if one is willing to deny the (...) conditional excluded middle principle. In order to make this point I demonstrate that (β) is valid on Stalnaker's theory of counterfactuals. This result is important and should not be neglected, I argue, because there is a particular line of objection to the revised formulations of the consequence argument that does not succeed against the original version. (shrink)

Suppose dispositions bear a distinctive connection to counterfactual facts, perhaps one that could be enshrined in a variation on the well-worn schema "Necessarily, x is disposed to phi in psi iff x would phi in psi. Could we exploit this connection to provide an account of what it is to be a disposition? This paper is about four views of dispositionality that attempt to do so.

I give an account of the nature of absolute or metaphysical necessity. Absolute-necessarily P, I suggest, just if it is always the case that P and there never is or was a power with a chance to bring it about, bring about a power to bring it about, etc., that not P. I display both advantages and a cost of this sort of definition.

How we define the space of possibilities of dispositional essentialism —that is, the set of possible worlds that are genuinely possible from the point of view of DE—has important consequences for central modal debates such as how to understand the concept of essence or the relation between DE and the necessity of laws of nature. In order to define DE’s space of possibilities we need to explore DE’s consequences regarding both necessity and possibility. Unfortunately, the notion of possibility has not (...) received much attention within the DE literature. In this paper, I attempt to fill this gap. I argue that the standard way of understanding possibility found in the literature—a proposition is possible iff it expresses the manifestation of some actual disposition—needlessly restricts the space of possibilities by not accepting global and absolute possibilities, including some alien properties, as genuinely possible. I propose instead to accept a more permissive understanding of possibility: a proposition is possible iff it does not contradict any of the necessities that follow from the core commitments of DE. This allows dispositionalists to expand their modal space and to account for modal intuitions that may otherwise undermine the tenability of DE. (shrink)

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)

A counterpossible is a counterfactual with an impossible antecedent. Counterpossibles present a puzzle for standard theories of counterfactuals, which predict that all counterpossibles are semantically vacuous. Moreover, counterpossibles play an important role in many debates within metaphysics and epistemology, including debates over grounding, causation, modality, mathematics, science, and even God. In this article, we will explore various positions on counterpossibles as well as their potential philosophical consequences.

Some philosophers maintain that physical properties are irreducibly modal: that properties are powers. Powers are then employed to provide explanations of other phenomena of philosophical interest such as laws of nature and modality. There is, however, a dispute among powers theorists about how far the powers ontology extends: are all manner of properties at all levels of fundamentality powers or are powers only to be found among the fundamental properties? This paper argues that the answer to this question depends on (...) the details of the metaphysics of powers. More specifically, this paper argues that if one understands powers as qualitative grounds of dispositions, as opposed to properties whose essences are constituted by dispositions, then all properties, be they fundamental or macro, are powers, i.e., pandispositionalism is true. The Conclusion: If qualitative dispositional essentialism is true, then pandispositionalism is true, is significant because there is increasing concern that orthodox dispositional essentialism is explanatorily deficient and perhaps even incoherent, meaning that qualitative dispositional essentialism is gaining increasing support in the literature on powers. All things considered, then, it is beginning to look more likely that pandispositionalism is true simpliciter. (shrink)

Substantive counterlegal discourse poses a problem for those according to whom the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. I discern two types of necessitarianism about laws: dispositional essentialism and modal necessitarianism. I argue that Toby Handfield’s response to the problem of counterlegals cannot help the modal necessitarian, according to whom all possible worlds are identical with respect to the laws. I thus propose a fictionalist treatment of counterlegals. Fictions are not limited by metaphysical possibility; hence, fictionalism affords the modal necessitarian (...) the means to account for the apparent substance of counterlegals even granting the metaphysical necessity of the laws. (shrink)

This paper shows how a niche account of the metaphysics of laws of nature and physical properties—the Powers-BSA—can underpin both a sense in which the laws are metaphysically necessary and a sense in which it is true that the laws could have been different. The ability to reconcile entrenched disagreement should count in favour of a philosophical theory, so this paper constitutes a novel argument for the Powers-BSA by showing how it can reconcile disagreement about the laws’ modal status. This (...) paper also constitutes a defence of modal necessitarianism, the interesting and controversial view according to which all worlds are nomologically identical, because it shows how the modal necessitarian can appease the orthodox contingentist about laws. (shrink)

According to hardcore actualism (HA), all modal truths are grounded in the concrete constituents of the actual world. In this paper, I discuss some problems faced by HA when it comes to accounting for certain alleged possibilities of non‐existence. I focus particular attention on Leech (2017)'s dilemma for HA, according to which HA must either sacrifice extensional correctness or admit mere possibilia. I propose a solution to Leech's dilemma, which relies on a distinction between weak and strong possibility. It remains (...) the case, however, that HA cannot capture certain iterated de re possibilities of non‐existence and that it is committed to a stock of necessary existents. But I still think that the virtues of the view outweigh these costs. (shrink)

Hardcore actualism (HA) grounds all modal truths in the concrete constituents of the actual world (see, e.g., Borghini and Williams (2008), Jacobs (2010), Vetter (2015)). I bolster HA, and elucidate the very nature of possibility (and necessity) according to HA, by considering if it can validate S5 modal logic. Interestingly, different considerations pull in different directions on this issue. To resolve the tension, we are forced to think hard about the nature of the hardcore actualist's modal reality and how radically (...) this departs from possible worlds orthodoxy. Once we achieve this departure, the prospects of a hardcore actualist validation of S5 look considerably brighter. This paper thus strengthens hardcore actualism by arguing that it can indeed validate S5–arguably the most popular logic of metaphysical modality–and, in the process, it elucidates the very nature of modality according to this revisionary, but very attractive, modal metaphysics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to relate the debate about the status of S4 and S5 as modal logics for metaphysical modality to the debate about the identity of propositions. The necessary truth of the characteristic axioms of S4 and S5 (when interpreted in terms of metaphysical modality) is derived from a view about the identity of propositions, the view that necessarily equivalent propositions are identical.

Dispositionalism is the theory of modality that grounds all modal truths in powers: all metaphysically possible and necessary truths are to be explained by pointing to some actual power, or absence thereof. One of the main reasons to endorse dispositionalism is that it promises to deliver an especially desirable epistemology of modality. However, so far this issue has not be fully investigated with the care it is due. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap. We will cast (...) some doubts on whether the dispositionalist really is in a better position to explain our modal knowledge. In fact, we argue that there is a tension between some core tenets of a powers metaphysics and the very features that make dispositionalism the ideal backdrop for a desirable epistemology of modality. We conclude that this leaves dispositionalists who want to deliver the promised epistemology with a hard, currently unfulfilled, task. (shrink)

Establishing Dispositionalism as a viable theory of modality requires the successful fulfilment of two tasks: showing that all modal truths can be derived from truths about actual powers, and offering a suitable metaphysics of powers. These two tasks are intertwined: difficulties in one can affect the chances of success in the other. In this paper, I generalise an objection to Dispositionalism by Jessica Leech and argue that the theory in its present form is ill-suited to account for de re truths (...) about merely possible entities. I argue that such difficulty is rooted in a problem in the metaphysics of powers. In particular, I contend that the well-known tension between two key principle of powers ontology, namely Directedness and Independence has received an unsatisfactory solution so far, and that it is this unsatisfactory solution concerning the status of “unmanifested manifestations” that makes it hard for Dispositionalism to account for mere possibilia. I develop a novel account of the status of unmanifested manifestations and an overall metaphysics of powers which allows to better respond to Leech's objection and handle mere possibilia. The central idea of the proposal is that unmanifested manifestations are akin to mere logical existents, and are best characterised as non-essentially non-located entities. (shrink)

Establishing Dispositionalism as a viable theory of modality requires the successful fulfilment of two tasks: (i) showing that all modal truths can be derived from truths about actual powers, and (ii) offering a suitable metaphysics of powers. These two tasks are intertwined: difficulties in one can affect the chances of success in the other. In this paper, I generalise an objection to Dispositionalism by Jessica Leech and argue that the theory in its present form is ill-suited to account for de (...) re truths about merely possible entities. I argue that such difficulty is rooted in a problem in the metaphysics of powers. In particular, I contend that the well-known tension between two key principle of powers ontology, namely Directedness (all powers are “for” their manifestation) and Independence (some powers might fail to bring about their manifestation) has received an unsatisfactory solution so far, and that it is this unsatisfactory solution concerning the status of “unmanifested manifestations” that makes it hard for Dispositionalism to account for mere possibilia. I develop a novel account of the status of unmanifested manifestations and an overall metaphysics of powers which allows to better respond to Leech's objection and handle mere possibilia. The central idea of the proposal is that unmanifested manifestations are akin to mere logical existents, and are best characterised as non-essentially non-located entities. (shrink)

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)

There is a tension between Dispositionalism––the view that all metaphysical modality is grounded in actual irreducible dispositional properties––and the possibility of time travel. This is due to the fact that Dispositionalism makes it much harder to solve a potentiality-based version of the grandfather paradox. We first present a potentiality-based version of the grandfather paradox, stating that the following theses are inconsistent: 1) time travel is possible, 2) powers fully ground modality, 3) self-defeating actions are impossible, 4) time-travellers retain their intrinsic (...) powers upon time-travelling, and 5) time-travellers are ordinary agents with basic intrinsic potentialities. We then consider a number of potential solutions, and find them wanting. We argue that the metaphysical impossibility of performing a self-defeating action acts as a necessary perfect mask––while time-travel lets us “slip” the potentiality under the mask, thus generating the contradiction. We conclude considering what are the options for the dispositionalist. (shrink)

Beyond Vision: Philosophical Essays By O’CallaghanCaseyOxford University Press, 2017. xii + 204 pp.

Can the desire for efficiently systematised theories in science be explained from within a powers metaphysics? It is plausible that the traditional ‘Powers Theory of Laws’, endorsed by many friends of powers, does not alone provide such an explanation. This has led a number of recent authors to argue that a ‘Powers Best System Account’ of laws would be a preferable alternative. This account borrows a method for determining laws from the Humean and applies it to a reality of powers. (...) Here I claim, to the contrary, that this account is both internally unworkable and, anyway, completely undermotivated when compared with the traditional view. Apart from some brief suggestions for alternative accounts, I’ll conclude that the powers theorist still has their work cut out to explain systematising in science. (shrink)