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Single Idea 15461

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

Full Idea

A disposition which would straight away vanish if put to the test is called 'finkish'. A finkishly fragile thing is fragile so long as it is not struck. But if it were struck, it would straight away cease to be fragile, and it would not break.

Clarification

A 'fink' is a worker planted by the bosses to undermine a strike!

Gist of Idea

A 'finkish' disposition is real, but disappears when the stimulus occurs

Source

David Lewis (Finkish dispositions [1997], I)

Book Ref

Lewis,David: 'Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology' [CUP 1999], p.134

A Reaction

There are also 'antidotes'. Finks kill the disposition, antidotes kill the effect. These cases are problems for the simple conditional analysis of a disposition - because we never achieved the consequent.

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]