Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Introduction to 'New Pragmatists'' and 'The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

---

2 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 5. Powers and Properties

5481	Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis]
	Full Idea: One cannot think of a property as just a set of objects in a domain (as Fregean logicians do), as though the property has no powers, but is just a way of classifying objects.
	From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7)
	A reaction: I agree. It is sometimes suggested that properties are what 'individuate' objects, but how could they do that if they didn't have some power? If properties are known by their causal role, why do they have that causal role?

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

5458	Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis]
	Full Idea: With few, if any, exceptions, the fundamental properties of physical theory are dispositional properties of the things that have them.
	From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3)
	A reaction: He is denying that they are passive (as Locke saw primary qualities), and says they are actively causal, or else capacities or propensities. Sounds right to me.