more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 16738

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / b. Dispositions and powers ]

Full Idea

Scholastics reject anything like bare dispositions, on Aristotelian principles. Powers are forms, and forms actualise their subject, and are causally efficacious. Therefore no powers can be bare dispositions.

Gist of Idea

Scholastics reject dispositions, because they are not actual, as forms require

Source

Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 23.5)

Book Ref

Pasnau,Robert: 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' [OUP 2011], p.535

A Reaction

The point seems to be that a mere disposition is not actual, as a form is required to be. I would have thought that a power does not have to be operational to be actual. A live electric wire is a real phenomenon. It isn't waiting to be live.

The 13 ideas with the same theme [relation of dispositions to underlying active powers]:

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]