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Ideas for 'works', 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' and 'Naming and Necessity notes and addenda'

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3 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence

16767	There is no centralised power, but we still need essence for a metaphysical understanding [Pasnau]
	Full Idea: One could empirically reject a centralised power within a substance - and still think a genuine substance requires a form of some more abstract kind, not for a physical explanation, but for a full metaphysical understanding of how things are.
	From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 25.2)
	A reaction: This divorce of the 'metaphysical' from the physical is a running theme in Pasnau, and he cites support from Leibniz. I'm not sure I understand 'metaphysical' understanding, if it is actually contrary to physics. I take it to be 'psychological'.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions

16788	Instead of adding Aristotelian forms to physical stuff, one could add dispositions [Pasnau]
	Full Idea: Someone who wants to enrich a strict corpuscularian account with other metaphysical entities has alternatives other than Aristotelian hylomorphism. One can, for instance, introduce dispositions.
	From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 28.2)
	A reaction: This slightly throws me, because I have been flirting with a dispositional account of hylomorphism. The implication is that the form is abstract and structural, where the disposition is real and physical. But dispositions can do the job of forms.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / b. Dispositions and powers

16738	Scholastics reject dispositions, because they are not actual, as forms require [Pasnau]
	Full Idea: Scholastics reject anything like bare dispositions, on Aristotelian principles. Powers are forms, and forms actualise their subject, and are causally efficacious. Therefore no powers can be bare dispositions.
	From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 23.5)
	A reaction: The point seems to be that a mere disposition is not actual, as a form is required to be. I would have thought that a power does not have to be operational to be actual. A live electric wire is a real phenomenon. It isn't waiting to be live.