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Single Idea 23707

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers ]

Full Idea

In broad terms: powers are properties that necessitate dispositions.

Gist of Idea

Powers are properties which necessitate dispositions

Source

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

Book Ref

Friend/Kimpton-Nye: 'Dispositions and Powers' [CUP 2023], p.46

A Reaction

If powers are properties then they must be properties 'of' something, which then seems to be more fundamental than the powers. Maybe our concept of an electron helps, which seems to be a bundle of a few properties, but no one even asks 'of' what.

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]