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Full Idea
If a robust iron pot is attached to a bomb with a sensitive detonator. If the pot is struck, the bomb will go off, so they counterfactual 'if the pot were struck it would break' is true, but it is not a fragile pot. This is a 'mimic' of the disposition.
Gist of Idea
A robust pot attached to a sensitive bomb is not fragile, but if struck it will easily break
Source
Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 2.2.5.1)
Book Ref
Bird,Alexander: 'Nature's Metaphysics' [OUP 2007], p.29
A Reaction
A very nice example, showing that a true disposition would have to be an internal feature (a power) of the pot itself, not a mere disposition to behave. The problem is these pesky empiricists, who want to reduce it all to what is observable.
15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
15461 | A 'finkish' disposition is real, but disappears when the stimulus occurs [Lewis] |
12613 | Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor] |
14312 | Orthodoxy says dispositions entail conditionals (rather than being equivalent to them) [Mumford] |
14416 | An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks] |
9474 | A disposition is finkish if a time delay might mean the manifestation fizzles out [Bird] |
9475 | A robust pot attached to a sensitive bomb is not fragile, but if struck it will easily break [Bird] |
14348 | An 'antidote' allows a manifestation to begin, but then blocks it [Corry] |
14347 | A 'finkish' disposition is one that is lost immediately after the appropriate stimulus [Corry] |
14584 | The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention [Mumford/Anjum] |
19016 | We should think of dispositions as 'to do' something, not as 'to do something, if ....' [Vetter] |