Can Dispositional Essences Ground the Laws of Nature?
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (2):263 - 275 (2011)
| Abstract | A dispositional property is a tendency, or potency, to manifest some characteristic behaviour in some appropriate context. The mainstream view in the twentieth century was that such properties are to be explained in terms of more fundamental non-dispositional properties, together with the laws of nature. In the last few decades, however, a rival view has become popular, according to which some properties are essentially dispositional in nature, and the laws of nature are to be explained in terms of these fundamental dispositions. The supposed ability of fundamental dispositions to ground natural laws is one of the most attractive features of the dispositional essentialist position. In this paper, however, I cast doubt on the ability of dispositional essences to ground the laws of nature. In particular I argue that the dispositional essentialist position is not able to coherently respond?sympathetically or otherwise?to Cartwright's challenge that there are no true general laws of nature | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesAlice Drewery (2001). Dispositions and Ceteris Paribus Laws. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52 (4):723-733.
Alexander Bird (2004). Antidotes All the Way Down? Theoria 19 (3):259–69.
Alexander Bird (2004). Antidotes All the Way Down? Theoria 19 (3):259-269.
Vassilios Livanios (2008). Bird and the Dispositional Essentialist Account of Spatiotemporal Relations. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 39 (2):383 - 394.
Alexander Bird (2008). Review of Alexander Bird, Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (6).
Robin Findlay Hendry & Darrell P. Rowbottom (2009). Dispositional Essentialism and the Necessity of Laws. Analysis 69 (4):668-677.
Anjan Chakravartty (2003). The Dispositional Essentialist View of Properties and Laws. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 11 (4):393 – 413.
Alexander Bird (2003). Structural Properties. In Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra & Hallvard Lillehammer (eds.), Real Metaphysics. Routledge.
Alexander Bird (2005). Laws and Essences. Ratio 18 (4):437–461.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-08-21Total downloads120 ( #4,231 of 549,122 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,740 of 549,122 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
