Full Idea
Using dispositional analyses in aid of ontological reductions is what empiricism taught us. If you are down on cats, reduce them to permanent possibilities of sensation; if you are down on electrons, reduce them to possibilities of experimental outcome.
Gist of Idea
Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result'
Source
Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1)
Book Reference
Fodor,Jerry A.: 'Concepts: where cognitive science went wrong' [OUP 1998], p.4
A Reaction
The cats line is phenomenalism; the electrons line is instrumentalism. I like this as a serious warning about dispositions, even where they seem most plausible, as in the disposition of glass to break when struck. Why is it thus disposed?