Abstract
According to one popular criterion of property identity, where X and Y are properties, X is identical with Y if and only if X and Y bestow the same conditional powers on their bearers. In this paper, I argue that this causal criterion of property identity is unsatisfactory, because it fails to provide a sufficient condition for the identification of properties. My argument for this claim is based on the observation that the summing of properties does not entail the summing of the conditional powers that they bestow on an object, but, rather, in some cases their subtraction. If so, the following causal structure seems possible: There are two properties, A and B. Each bestows a different set of conditional powers on its bearer, but the conjunctive property A-and-B bestows exactly the same set of conditional powers as either A or B. If this causal structure is possible, then it creates a serious problem for the causal criterion of property identity.
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Notes
Note that in the criteria of property identity discussed in this paper, properties are to be understood as type-level entities, that is, as universals. Obviously if ‘property’ is instead read as ‘trope’, then these criteria of identity do not provide a satisfactory account of property identity, since they take no account of a trope’s particularity. However, this is not to suggest that this discussion has no relevance to trope theory. Trope theory needs some account of what it is for two tropes to be of the same type. According to one possible account, two tropes are of the same type if they resemble and they resemble if they bestow resembling conditional powers on their bearers. The problem that this paper raises is equally relevant to this kind of claim.
See Shoemaker (1980), (2001) and (2013). For others who accept Identity (or something very much like it), see, for example: Chakravartty (2007), 121–2; Fales (1990), Ch. 8, Sect. 5; Gillett (2006), 279–80; Walter (2010), 216; Watkins (2005), 45; and Whittle (2006), 485. (Note, Identity should be distinguished from a further causal criterion of property identity that Shoemaker used to maintain (Shoemaker 2003 and 2007) and has since abandoned (Shoemaker 2013), which builds in a claim about the ‘backward-looking’ causal features of a property. See Sect. 4 for a discussion of it).
It is unclear which, if any, of these three positions certain advocates of powers would wish to support. This is true of Bird (2007) and Ellis (2001) (Although Ellis does express sympathies with Shoemaker’s criterion of property identity. See Ellis (2001), 103, fn. 12 and 13.) I think that this is in part because, as one of the referees for this paper has observed, their primary concern is with fundamental physical properties which arguably bestow powers simpliciter (in the sense understood by Shoemaker).
Both of these assumptions are dropped in the next section. However, as it is argued there, the rejection of these assumptions, far from leading to the rejection of the counterexample, merely leads to a more complicated version of it.
I have claimed that, for example, A1 bestows on the circuit the conditional power to make the red bulb shine if the circuit has C5. An alternative interpretation might be that A1 bestows on the circuit the power to make the red bulb shine simpliciter where C5 is a stimulus for the circuit’s manifestation of this power. (I am grateful to a referee for raising this point.) Given Shoemaker’s distinction between conditional powers and powers simpliciter, one should accept the first interpretation. This is because C5 is a further property of the circuit. As noted earlier, where a power simpliciter of an object is determined jointly by different properties of the object, each of the relevant properties, according to Shoemaker, bestows a conditional power on the object. A1 does not bestow on the circuit the power to make the red bulb shine simpliciter. This is because for the red bulb to shine, it is not sufficient that the circuit has property A1—the circuit must also have property C5. Hence, A1 bestows on the circuit the conditional power to make the red bulb shine if the circuit has C5. Given Shoemaker’s account, it would only be correct to interpret A1 as bestowing on the circuit the power simpliciter to make the red bulb shine (and C5 as a stimulus for the circuit’s manifestation of that power) if C5 was not a property of the circuit. The alternative claim that A1 bestows on the circuit the power to make the red bulb shine simpliciter where C5 is a stimulus for the circuit’s manifestation of this power seems to be closer to Mumford’s position. (See Sect. 1).
The observation that the summing of properties does not always entail the summing of the conditional powers that they bestow has other important consequences. Elsewhere, I provide a similar method of argument to demonstrate that it leads to the rejection of Shoemaker’s account of property realization. See ‘The entailment problem and the subset account of property realization’ (in progress).
I would like to thank Shoemaker for making me aware (in private correspondence) of this type of objection.
Similarly, contrary to my earlier claim, the property of being knife-shaped-and-being made of butter-and-being at room temperature does bestow the conditional power of being able to cut wood if it is made of steel—if an object with the property of being knife-shaped-and-being made of butter-and-being at room temperature also had the property of being made of steel, then the object would have the power to cut wood.
I’m grateful to E. J. Lowe for helpful discussion on this issue. For a more detailed defence of this point, see my ‘The entailment problem and the subset account of property realization’ (in progress).
An alternative proposal to Shoemaker’s, suggested by an anonymous referee, is that to allow that A1-and-B4 bestows G if the circuit has A2 and C5 does not require one to accept that a conditional proposition with an impossible antecedent picks out a conditional power. A1-and-B4 bestows this conditional power, but A2’s obtaining would come at the expense of A1’s ceasing to obtain. As the referee comments, this would require one to allow that A1-and-B4 bestows a conditional power which requires as part of its condition that one of the conjuncts of A1-and-B4 is removed. However, the referee suggests that since the conjunct that has to be removed (i.e. A1) is not the ultimate ground of the conditional power (i.e. B4), this is not necessarily problematic.
This is an interesting proposal. However, I do foresee a potential problem with it when one tries to unpack it—namely that, at least given Shoemaker’s account of what it is for a property to bestow a conditional power, it does not result in the claim that A1-and-B4 bestows G if the circuit has A2 and C5, but merely in the claim that B4 does. If I have understood the referee’s proposal correctly, the conditional power that A1-and-B4 bestows should be interpreted more precisely as follows: A1-and-B4 bestows G if the circuit has A2 (and, hence, ceases to have A1, and thereby ceases to have A1-and-B4) and C5. Now, according to Shoemaker’s account of a conditional power, if A1-and-B4 bestows G if the circuit has A2 and C5 then this just means that if, as well as having property A1-and-B4, the circuit also had A2 and C5, then the circuit would have the power to light the green bulb simpliciter. That is, it means that having A1-and-B4 is not sufficient for the circuit to have the power to light the green bulb simpliciter, but having the combination of A1-and-B4, A2 and C5 is. However, the referee’s proposal seems to result in the claim that A1-and-B4 bestows G if the circuit has A2 and C5 because if, instead of having A1-and-B4 the circuit just had B4, and the circuit also had A2 and C5, then the circuit would have the power to light the green bulb simpliciter. Hence, the claim is not that if the circuit had A1-and-B4 in combination with A2 and C5, then it would have the power to light the green bulb simpliciter, but rather that if the circuit had B4 in combination with A2 and C5, then it would have the power to light the green bulb simpliciter. But, given Shoemaker’s account, this does not mean that A1-and-B4 bestows G if the circuit has A2 and C5, but merely that B4 bestows G if the circuit has A2 and C5. To repeat, given Shoemaker’s account, it is only the case that A1-and-B4 bestows G if the circuit has A2 and C5, if it is the case that if the circuit had the combination of A1-and-B4, A2 and C5 then it would have the power to light the green bulb simpliciter.
Hence, given Shoemaker’s account of what it is for a property to bestow a conditional power (which is the concern of this paper), this proposal does not work. However, it does raise the interesting issue of whether an alternative account of what it is for a property to bestow a conditional power, designed to overcome the problem in the way that the referee suggests, could be developed.
Exactly which properties of the circuit make certain claims about it true is, of course, a matter for much debate. Negative truths—hence, for example, the truth that the circuit does not have a fourth bulb are particularly problematic. However, it should be emphasised that these claims arguably do not commit us to the existence of negative properties. That is, to say that the circuit does not have a fourth bulb and this is true in virtue of the various properties that characterize the circuit does not thereby commit one to the claim that the circuit has the negative property of ‘not having a fourth bulb’. See for example, Armstrong (2004) (ch. 5) and Armstrong (1997) (ch. 3). For an alternative account of negative truths which rejects negative properties but which, unlike Armstrong’s, does so without appealing to totality facts, see Heil (2003) (§. 7.5) and Heil (2006). Note, that if one were to accept negative properties, then one might be able to appeal to them to offer a response to the problem that I raise. I’m very grateful to an anonymous referee for drawing my attention to this. (See Sect. 4 (iii) for a discussion of this response).
To deny this is to allow that conditional propositions that have impossible antecedents pick out conditional powers.
Note, in such a case, although one could not observe which position the switches were in, this does not mean that one could not recognize which positions the switches were in, for the effects of the switches being in different positions—i.e. the shining of the bulbs—might themselves be observable. In such a case we would know the properties not by ‘the phenomenal appearance they cause in us’ but by ‘the phenomenal appearance on us of other effects they cause’ (Mumford 2004, 187). See further Shoemaker (1980), 236.
For further defence of this claim, see, for example, Lowe (1989).
Claims (ii) and (iii) are perhaps more contentious than (i). See Lowe (2006), 116 for the claim that conjunctive properties are identity-dependent on their conjuncts. See Armstrong (1997), 31 and Fales (1990), 228 for the claim that a conjunctive property is related to its conjuncts as a whole to its parts.
See, for example, Shoemaker (1980), 236-7.
Such a test is, of course, vulnerable to error and must be carried out with care. Most importantly, to observe how the removal of a particular property—and that property alone—alters the causal situation, the act of removing the property must not result in the removal or alteration of any other property.
For Lowe, the will is importantly different from any other power in being a two-way as opposed to one-way power. See Lowe ‘Substance Causation, Powers, and Human Agency’ in Gibb et al. (2013). I’m grateful to Lowe for helpful discussion on this issue.
See, for example, Sorenson (2008). (Although note, Sorenson treats absences as causes).
For further discussion of this point, see Ellis (2001), Ch 2.8.
If one were to allow that there were possible worlds that are nomologically different from that of our own—hence, for example, if one were to allow that there were possible worlds in which no energy is required for something to shine but energy is required for it to not shine—these would therefore be worlds in which the physicists would give different answers regarding which properties are negative. (I’m grateful to a referee for drawing my attention to this point). Note, this does not affect the causal account of property identity which, as Shoemaker explains, is concerned with the identity of properties within a world and worlds nomologically like it. (See the Appendix to Shoemaker 2007).
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I would like to thank two anonymous referees for their interesting and helpful comments.
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Gibb, S.C. The Causal Criterion of Property Identity and the Subtraction of Powers. Erkenn 79, 127–146 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-013-9481-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-013-9481-0