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Single Idea 9476

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic ]

Full Idea

Maybe a disposition is a more fundamental notion than a cause, in which case Lewis has from the very start erred in seeking a causal analysis, in a traditional, conceptual sense, of disposition terms.

Gist of Idea

If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them

Source

comment on David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Alexander Bird - Nature's Metaphysics 2.2.8

Book Ref

Bird,Alexander: 'Nature's Metaphysics' [OUP 2007], p.37

A Reaction

Is this right about Lewis? I see him as reducing both dispositions and causes to a set of bald facts, which exist in possible and actual worlds. Conditionals and counterfactuals also suffer the same fate.

The 39 ideas with the same theme [powers seen as the foundation of physical reality]:

15773 Actualities are arranged by priority, going back to what initiates process [Aristotle]
11387 The main characteristic of the source of change is activity [energeia] [Aristotle, by Politis]
18451 The presence of the incorporeal is only known by certain kinds of disposition [Porphyry]
16635 Incorporeal substances are powers or forces [Descartes, by Pasnau]
17195 Things persevere through a force which derives from God [Spinoza]
17011 I suspect that each particle of bodies has attractive or repelling forces [Newton]
12710 As well as extension, bodies contain powers [Leibniz]
12965 All occurrence in the depth of a substance is spontaneous 'action' [Leibniz]
12999 Substances are primary powers; their ways of being are the derivative powers [Leibniz]
13079 A substance contains the laws of its operations, and its actions come from its own depth [Leibniz]
12749 Derivate forces are in phenomena, but primitive forces are in the internal strivings of substances [Leibniz]
12708 The soul is not a substance but a substantial form, the first active faculty [Leibniz]
12723 The most primitive thing in substances is force, which leads to their actions and dispositions [Leibniz]
23664 Powers are quite distinct and simple, and so cannot be defined [Reid]
23669 Thinkers say that matter has intrinsic powers, but is also passive and acted upon [Reid]
23228 The principle of activity and generation is found in a self-moving basic force [Fichte]
17534 A 'probability wave' is a quantitative version of Aristotle's potential, a mid-way type of reality [Heisenberg]
14329 Some dispositional properties (such as mental ones) may have no categorical base [Price,HH]
15487 If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB]
12676 Causal powers can't rest on things which lack causal power [Ellis]
15218 Scientists define copper almost entirely (bar atomic number) in terms of its dispositions [Harré/Madden]
15302 We explain powers by the natures of things, but explanations end in inexplicable powers [Harré/Madden]
15303 Maybe a physical field qualifies as ultimate, if its nature is identical with its powers [Harré/Madden]
9476 If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis]
11934 The physical world has a feature very like mental intentionality [Molnar]
11947 Dispositions and external powers arise entirely from intrinsic powers in objects [Molnar]
11952 The Standard Model suggest that particles are entirely dispositional, and hence are powers [Molnar]
11953 Some powers are ungrounded, and others rest on them, and are derivative [Molnar]
16556 Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14294 Dispositions are attacked as mere regularities of events, or place-holders for unknown properties [Mumford]
9446 Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford]
17996 Powers are claimed to be basic because fundamental particles lack internal structure [Psillos]
15127 A categorical basis could hardly explain a disposition if it had no powers of its own [Hawthorne]
14540 Only real powers are fundamental [Bird, by Mumford/Anjum]
23771 Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE]
12467 Powers come from concrete particulars, not from the laws of nature [Jacobs]
14555 Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do [Mumford/Anjum]
22632 Physics understands the charge of an electron as a power, not as a quality [Ingthorsson]
23714 Dispositional essentialism (unlike the grounding view) says only fundamental properties are powers [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]