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Single Idea 9475

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

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.

The 12 ideas with the same theme [dispositions understood as hypothetical behaviour]:

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]