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Single Idea 16732

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 3. Types of Properties ]

Full Idea

The seventeenth century is often said to have bequeathed us three ways of thinking about sensible qualities: either in reductive microphysical terms, or as internal phenomenal states, or else as powers or dispositions.

Gist of Idea

17th C qualities are either microphysical, or phenomenal, or powers

Source

Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 23.1)

Book Ref

Pasnau,Robert: 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' [OUP 2011], p.519


A Reaction

Pasnau goes on to claim that no one in the 17th century believed the third one. I take it to be a very new, and totally wonderful and correct, view.


The 17 ideas with the same theme [how properties might be divided into different groups]:

An 'accident' is something which may possibly either belong or not belong to a thing [Aristotle]
An 'attribute' is what the intellect takes as constituting an essence [Spinoza]
Length is a 'determinable' property, and one mile is one its 'determinates' [Armstrong]
The determinates of a determinable must be incompatible with each other [Armstrong]
Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG]
A property is 'emergent' if it is caused by elements of a system, when the elements lack the property [Searle]
Maybe we have abundant properties for semantics, and sparse properties for ontology [Hale/Wright]
We have four options, depending whether particulars and properties are sui generis or constructions [Oliver]
A 'categorial' property is had by virtue of being or having an item from a category [Wedin]
Dispositions and categorical properties are two modes of presentation of the same thing [Mumford]
A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider]
Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks]
There might be just one fundamental natural property [Bird]
Being polka-dotted is a 'spatial distribution' property [Cameron]
17th C qualities are either microphysical, or phenomenal, or powers [Pasnau]
A determinate property must be a unique instance of the determinable class [Vetter]
Properties are said to be categorical qualities or non-qualitative dispositions [Ingthorsson]