Switch to: Citations

Add references

You must login to add references.
  1. A World of States of Affairs.D. M. Armstrong - 1997 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...)
  • Powerful qualities and pure powers.Henry Taylor - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (6):1423-1440.
    Many think that properties are powers. However, whilst some claim that properties are pure powers, others claim that properties are powerful qualities. In this paper, I argue that the canonical formulation of the powerful qualities view is no different from the pure powers view. Contrary to appearances, the two positions accept the same view of properties. Thus, the debate between them rests on an illusion. I draw out some consequences of this surprising result for issues over property individuation. Along the (...)
    No categories
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   36 citations  
  • Powerful Qualities, Phenomenal Concepts, and the New Challenge to Physicalism.Henry Taylor - 2018 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96 (1):53-66.
    Defenders of the phenomenal concept strategy have to explain how both physical and phenomenal concepts provide a substantive grasp on the nature of their referents, whilst referring to the very same experience. This is the ‘new challenge’ to physicalism. In this paper, I argue that if the physicalist adopts the powerful qualities ontology of properties then a new and powerful version of the phenomenal concept strategy can be developed, which answers the new challenge.
    No categories
    Direct download (7 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • In Defence of Powerful Qualities.John H. Taylor - 2013 - Metaphysica 14 (1):93-107.
    The ontology of ‘powerful qualities’ is gaining an increasing amount of attention in the literature on properties. This is the view that the so-called categorical or qualitative properties are identical with ‘dispositional’ properties. The position is associated with C.B. Martin, John Heil, Galen Strawson and Jonathan Jacobs. Robert Schroer ( 2012 ) has recently mounted a number of criticisms against the powerful qualities view as conceived by these main adherents, and has also advanced his own (radically different) version of the (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • In Defence of Powerful Qualities.John H. Taylor - 2013 - Metaphysica 14 (1):93-107.
    The ontology of ‘powerful qualities’ is gaining an increasing amount of attention in the literature on properties. This is the view that the so-called categorical or qualitative properties are identical with ‘dispositional’ properties. The position is associated with C.B. Martin, John Heil, Galen Strawson and Jonathan Jacobs. Robert Schroer ( 2012 ) has recently mounted a number of criticisms against the powerful qualities view as conceived by these main adherents, and has also advanced his own (radically different) version of the (...)
    No categories
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • The evolutionary argument for phenomenal powers.Hedda Hassel Mørch - 2017 - Philosophical Perspectives 31 (1):293-316.
    Epiphenomenalism is the view that phenomenal properties – which characterize what it is like, or how it feels, for a subject to be in conscious states – have no physical effects. One of the earliest arguments against epiphenomenalism is the evolutionary argument (James 1890/1981; Eccles and Popper 1977; Popper 1978), which starts from the following problem: why is pain correlated with stimuli detrimental to survival and reproduction – such as suffocation, hunger and burning? And why is pleasure correlated with stimuli (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   31 citations  
  • The Mind in Nature.C. B. Martin - 2007 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    What are the most fundamental features of the world? Do minds stand outside the natural order? Is a unified picture of mental and physical reality possible? The Mind in Nature provides a staunchly realist account of the world as a unified system incorporating both the mental and the physical.
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   172 citations  
  • The Mind in Nature * By C. B. MARTIN. [REVIEW]C. Martin - 2009 - Analysis 69 (2):386-388.
    The Mind in Nature has two central aims. First, that of defending a ‘basic ontology’. Second, having advanced a plausible ontological framework, to appeal to it to cast light on the status of intentionality and the nature of consciousness, paying particular attention to the question of what distinguishes conscious systems from those that are vegetative.Central to Martin's basic ontology is his acceptance of a realist conception of dispositionality. Contrary to the view of David Lewis and others, talk about a thing's (...)
    No categories
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   180 citations  
  • New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
  • Powerful Qualities, Not Pure Powers.Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2011 - The Monist 94 (1):81-102.
    I explore two accounts of properties within a dispositional essentialist (or causal powers) framework, the pure powers view and the powerful qualities view. I first attempt to clarify precisely what the pure powers view is, and then raise objections to it. I then present the powerful qualities view and, in order to avoid a common misconception, offer a restatement of it that I shall call the truthmaker view. I end by briefly defending the truthmaker view against objections.
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   87 citations  
  • From an ontological point of view.John Heil - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    From an Ontological Point of View is a highly original and accessible exploration of fundamental questions about what there is. John Heil discusses such issues as whether the world includes levels of reality; the nature of objects and properties; the demands of realism; what makes things true; qualities, powers, and the relation these bear to one another. He advances an account of the fundamental constituents of the world around us, and applies this account to problems that have plagued recent work (...)
  • The Identity Theory of Powers Revised.Joaquim Giannotti - 2021 - Erkenntnis 86 (3):603-621.
    Dispositionality and qualitativity are key notions to describe the world that we inhabit. Dispositionality is a matter of what a thing is disposed to do in certain circumstances. Qualitativity is a matter of how a thing is like. According to the Identity Theory of powers, every fundamental property is at once dispositional and qualitative, or a powerful quality. Canonically, the Identity Theory holds a contentious identity claim between a property’s dispositionality and its qualitativity. In the literature, this view faces a (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   25 citations  
  • A World of States of Affairs.D. Armstrong - 1993 - Philosophical Perspectives 7:429-440.
    In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   941 citations  
  • The Universe as We Find It.John Heil - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    What does reality encompass? Is it exclusively physical, or does it include mental and 'abstract' aspects? What are the elements of being, reality's raw materials? John Heil offers stimulating answers to these questions framed in terms of a comprehensive metaphysics of substances and properties inspired by Descartes, Locke, and their successors.
  • The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science.Edward Jonathan Lowe - 2006 - Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press.
    E. J. Lowe, a prominent figure in contemporary metaphysics, sets out and defends his theory of what there is. His four-category ontology is a metaphysical system which recognizes four fundamental categories of beings: substantial and non-substantial particulars and substantial and non-substantial universals. Lowe argues that this system has an explanatory power which is unrivalled by more parsimonious theories and that this counts decisively in its favour. He shows that it provides a powerful explanatory framework for a unified account of causation, (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   286 citations  
  • Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.Alexander Bird - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Professional philosophers and advanced students working in metaphysics and the philosophy of science will find this book both provocative and stimulating.
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   462 citations  
  • From an Ontological Point of View.John Heil - 2003 - Philosophy 79 (309):491-494.
    No categories
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   380 citations  
  • New Work For a Theory of Universals.David Lewis - 1983 - In D. H. Mellor & Alex Oliver (eds.), Properties. Oxford University Press.
    No categories
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1010 citations