more on this theme     |     more from this thinker

Single Idea 23698

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

Full Idea

The three platitudes about dispositions are that 1) they are directed towards some specific behaviour, 2) they can be triggered under specific conditions, and 3) their directedness is modal, meaning not 'when it is triggered' but 'it it were triggered'.

Gist of Idea

Dispositions have directed behaviour which occurs if triggered

Source

Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 2.1.1)

Book Ref

Friend/Kimpton-Nye: 'Dispositions and Powers' [CUP 2023], p.5

A Reaction

[PG summary] This is the preliminary to an attempt at a precise formal analysis, covering a number of hypothetical problem cases. 3) is the counterfactual rather than material conditional. Seems accurate.

The 15 ideas from 'Dispositions and Powers'

23698 Dispositions have directed behaviour which occurs if triggered [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23699 'Masked' dispositions fail to react because something intervenes [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23700 A disposition is 'altered' when the stimulus reverses the disposition [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23701 A disposition is 'mimicked' if a different cause produces that effect from that stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23702 A 'trick' can look like a stimulus for a disposition which will happen without it [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23703 Some dispositions manifest themselves without a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23704 We could analyse dispositions as 'possibilities', with no mention of a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23707 Powers are properties which necessitate dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23706 Hume's Dictum says no connections are necessary - so mass and spacetime warping could separate [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23708 Humeans see properties as having no more essential features and relations than their distinctness [Friend/Kimpton-Nye, by PG]
23709 Dispositions are what individuate properties, and they constitute their essence [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23710 Dispositionalism says modality is in the powers of this world, not outsourced to possible worlds [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23711 A power is a property which consists entirely of dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23712 Powers are qualitative properties which fully ground dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23714 Dispositional essentialism (unlike the grounding view) says only fundamental properties are powers [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]