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Full Idea
Nomological dispositions such as electric charge seem different from ordinary dispositions. A particle's being electrically charged is not just a possibility of exerting a certain force. Rather, the particle has to exert a force in certain circumstances.
Gist of Idea
Nomological dispositions (unlike ordinary ones) have to be continually realised
Source
Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 2.7)
Book Ref
Vetter,Barbara: 'Potentiality: from Dispositions to Modality' [OUP 2015], p.61
A Reaction
I can only pull when there is something to pull, but a magnet seems to have a 'field' of attraction which is pullish in character. Does it detect something to pull (like a monad)? Can there be a force which has no object?
Related Idea
Idea 13174 A piece of flint contains something resembling perceptions and appetites [Leibniz]
| 11938 | The Megarans say something is only capable of something when it is actually doing it [Aristotle] |
| 15766 | Megaran actualism is just scepticism about the qualities of things [Aristotle] |
| 15767 | Megaran actualists prevent anything from happening, by denying a capacity for it to happen! [Aristotle] |
| 21491 | Peirce's later realism about possibilities and generalities went beyond logical positivism [Peirce, by Atkin] |
| 16945 | We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine] |
| 15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
| 15315 | What is a field of potentials, if it only consists of possible events? [Harré/Madden] |
| 15180 | There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts [Sidelle] |
| 9499 | Megarian actualists deny unmanifested dispositions [Bird] |
| 14350 | If a disposition is never instantiated, it shouldn't be part of our theory of nature [Corry] |
| 19017 | Nomological dispositions (unlike ordinary ones) have to be continually realised [Vetter] |