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Full Idea
Where will one ever find in the world a faculty consisting in sheer power without performing an act? There is always a particular disposition to action, and towards one action rather than another.
Gist of Idea
There cannot be power without action; the power is a disposition to act
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.01)
Book Ref
Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.110
A Reaction
This is muddled. Leibniz defends powers in the possibilities of things, but he must then accept that some possibilities may never be realised, as with two complex chemicals which never ever come into contact with one another.
12941 | There cannot be power without action; the power is a disposition to act [Leibniz] |
12312 | The real essence of a thing is its powers, or 'dispositional properties' [Copi] |
12686 | Causal powers are a proper subset of the dispositional properties [Ellis] |
13596 | A causal power is a disposition to produce forces [Ellis] |
13599 | Powers are dispositions of the essences of kinds that involve them in causation [Ellis] |
8548 | Dispositional predicates ascribe powers, and the rest ascribe properties [Shoemaker] |
11939 | If powers only exist when actual, they seem to be nomadic, and indistinguishable from non-powers [Molnar] |
14314 | If dispositions are powers, background conditions makes it hard to say what they do [Mumford] |
14325 | Maybe dispositions can replace powers in metaphysics, as what induces property change [Mumford] |
23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
14536 | We say 'power' and 'disposition' are equivalent, but some say dispositions are manifestable [Mumford/Anjum] |
16738 | Scholastics reject dispositions, because they are not actual, as forms require [Pasnau] |