more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 12613

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / c. Dispositions as conditional ]

Full Idea

Using dispositional analyses in aid of ontological reductions is what empiricism taught us. If you are down on cats, reduce them to permanent possibilities of sensation; if you are down on electrons, reduce them to possibilities of experimental outcome.

Gist of Idea

Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result'

Source

Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1)

Book Ref

Fodor,Jerry A.: 'Concepts: where cognitive science went wrong' [OUP 1998], p.4

A Reaction

The cats line is phenomenalism; the electrons line is instrumentalism. I like this as a serious warning about dispositions, even where they seem most plausible, as in the disposition of glass to break when struck. Why is it thus disposed?

The 12 ideas with the same theme [dispositions understood as hypothetical behaviour]:

15466 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB]
15467 Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB]
15461 A 'finkish' disposition is real, but disappears when the stimulus occurs [Lewis]
12613 Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor]
14312 Orthodoxy says dispositions entail conditionals (rather than being equivalent to them) [Mumford]
14416 An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks]
9474 A disposition is finkish if a time delay might mean the manifestation fizzles out [Bird]
9475 A robust pot attached to a sensitive bomb is not fragile, but if struck it will easily break [Bird]
14348 An 'antidote' allows a manifestation to begin, but then blocks it [Corry]
14347 A 'finkish' disposition is one that is lost immediately after the appropriate stimulus [Corry]
14584 The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention [Mumford/Anjum]
19016 We should think of dispositions as 'to do' something, not as 'to do something, if ....' [Vetter]