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Full Idea
Powers are the properties at the core of the powers ontology, and dispositions are more like useful talk. …Dispositions are the phenomena to be explained by the power metaphysic.
Gist of Idea
Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers
Source
Neil E. Williams (The Powers Metaphysics [2019], 10.2)
Book Ref
Williams,Neil E.: 'The Powers Metaphysics' [OUP 2019], p.230
A Reaction
The picture I subscribe to. The first step is to see nature as dynamic (as Aristotle does with his 'potentialities'), and the next step to understand what must ground these dynamic dispositional properties. He calls dispositions 'process initiators'.
| 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] |