Abstract

In the following dissertation I defend a view of dispositions as complex relational properties analyzable as properties of having appropriate causal base properties. For a property to be a causal base for a disposition is just for its instances to be such that if certain precipitating conditions were to occur, then a certain manifestation would follow. The view that a disposition is the relational property of having some appropriate causal base has typically been offered as one component of an effort to provide a reduction of the dispositional to the non-dispositional. I leave open and ultimately support the view that the causal bases of dispositions are dispositional in nature in the specific sense of having their causal powers essentially. ;If there are simple properties, many may be simple causal powers. Instantiation of a simple causal power is a sufficient condition for the instantiation of a disposition. But while dispositional in nature in just this sense, simple causal powers are not dispositions themselves. Instantiation of a primitive causal power, while sufficient for instantiation of a certain disposition, is not necessary for instantiation of that disposition. The causal base for electrical potential may be a primitive power, for instance, but the disposition of electrical potential could have had complex causal bases. So, primitive causal powers, if there are any, are not dispositions. ;One objection to recognizing fundamentally dispositional properties is that it makes the laws of nature necessary truths. I accept this conclusion and argue that it is not pernicious. I propose that laws are analyses of the fundamental dispositions of things. As analyses, laws are necessary truths. But their status as laws is contingent upon the properties they analyze having instances. A consequent of this view is that causal necessity is a variety of metaphysical necessity. This result is easily reconciled with our intuition that events might have been governed by different laws. This intuition is just the intuition that things might have had different properties