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Single Idea 23706

[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 7. Strictness of Laws ]

Full Idea

Hume's Dictum says there are no necessary connections between existences, …and also between the distinct properties that individuals instantiate. …It follows that an object's property of mass and its disposition to warp space-time could come apart.

Gist of Idea

Hume's Dictum says no connections are necessary - so mass and spacetime warping could separate

Source

Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.2)

Book Ref

Friend/Kimpton-Nye: 'Dispositions and Powers' [CUP 2023], p.45

A Reaction

[compressed] This nicely pinpoints the heart of the Humean view, to which scientific essentialists and fans of powers in nature object. The objectors include me.

The 15 ideas from Friend/Kimpton-Nye

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]