21 ideas
| 23708 | Humeans see properties as having no more essential features and relations than their distinctness [Friend/Kimpton-Nye, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The Humean view says properties are 'quiddities', which individuates properties by nothing more than their distinctness from one another, so that dispositions are not essential to them, and there is no limit to possible property recombination. | |
| From: report of Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.3.1) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [my summary] All of this is implied by Hume, rather than stated. David Lewis supports this view. The theory of basic powers is the view's main opponent. This quidditist view is not found in physics, where a property's modal profile matters. |
| 23709 | Dispositions are what individuate properties, and they constitute their essence [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions constitute the essences of properties, and hence the identity of a property is not primitive ('quidditism'), but is given in terms of its dispositional relations to other properties. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.3.1) | |
| A reaction: I like the picture that powers are basic, giving rise to dispositions, which combine to produce qualitative and active properties. Powers are precise and relatively few, and properties are ill-defined and very numerous. Being 'influential', for example. |
| 23707 | Powers are properties which necessitate dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: In broad terms: powers are properties that necessitate dispositions. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: If powers are properties then they must be properties 'of' something, which then seems to be more fundamental than the powers. Maybe our concept of an electron helps, which seems to be a bundle of a few properties, but no one even asks 'of' what. |
| 23714 | Dispositional essentialism (unlike the grounding view) says only fundamental properties are powers [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: Dispositional essentialism yields the view that just fundamental properties and some evolved macro properties are powers. The grounding view, by contrast, seems to yield the result that all properties are powers. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.7) | |
| A reaction: For the second view, Mumford (for example) claims that the sphericity of a ball is a power, but that seems to miss the whole motivation for the powers ontology, which offers a fairly fundamental explanation of laws and modality. |
| 23711 | A power is a property which consists entirely of dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: In the 'dispositional essentialist' account (the main view) …what it is to be a power is to be a property whose essence is exhaustively constituted by dispositions. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Sounds wrong to me. A very complex property (such as 'stormy' weather) could be nothing more than a large bundle of dispositions, but that wouldn't make it a 'power', which has to be simpler and more basic. |
| 23712 | Powers are qualitative properties which fully ground dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: In the 'grounding' view of powers …powers are qualitative, because their essence can be specified independently of any dispositions or relations, but they fully ground dispositions. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] They give this as the rival view to dispositional essentialism. It may be a mistake to call a power a property (which needs to be 'of' something). Not sure how powers can be both fundamental and qualitative. Don't they also ground qualities? |
| 23698 | Dispositions have directed behaviour which occurs if triggered [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: The three platitudes about dispositions are that 1) they are directed towards some specific behaviour, 2) they can be triggered under specific conditions, and 3) their directedness is modal, meaning not 'when it is triggered' but 'it it were triggered'. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 2.1.1) | |
| A reaction: [PG summary] This is the preliminary to an attempt at a precise formal analysis, covering a number of hypothetical problem cases. 3) is the counterfactual rather than material conditional. Seems accurate. |
| 23699 | 'Masked' dispositions fail to react because something intervenes [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: A disposition is 'masked' when it fails to manifest due to interference, such as a fragile vase packed in bubble wrap, or an antidote taken after some poison. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 2.2.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The easiest account of these would be to say that the stimulus or trigger of the disposition never completely occurs. Poisons are only disposed to kill when they are fully ingested. Bubble wrapped vases can't be properly struck. |
| 23700 | A disposition is 'altered' when the stimulus reverses the disposition [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: A disposition is subject to 'altering' when the stimulus of the disposition influences whether (and to what degree) an object has that disposition. Either a live wire goes dead when it is touched, or a dead wire has a sensor making it live when touched. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 2.2.2) | |
| A reaction: The word 'fink' is used of such interference. Not much of a problem, I would say, because at the moment when the stimulus comes to do its job, there is no longer a disposition for it to trigger. No different from switching off a light. |
| 23701 | A disposition is 'mimicked' if a different cause produces that effect from that stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: A disposition is 'mimicked' by objects without that disposition which behave as though they do have it. Styrofoam plates are not fragile, but make a horrible sound when stressed, causing some annoyed person to break them. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 2.2.3) | |
| A reaction: A rather strained example! It shouldn't be a problem if the same cause (stress) leads to the same effect (breaking), but by a different path which is not the same as fragility. A formal analysis must obviously cover this case. |
| 23702 | A 'trick' can look like a stimulus for a disposition which will happen without it [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: A 'trick' can behave like a disposition, as when someone says 'abracadabra' over a hot cup of coffee, stimulating it (?) to gradually cool down. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 2.2.4) | |
| A reaction: This is like Humean constant conjunction which is obviously not a cause, such as night following day. Only a problem is this cup of coffee is seen in isolation from all other cups of coffee. Post hoc propter hoc does not apply to all stimuli! |
| 23703 | Some dispositions manifest themselves without a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: Some dispositions, such as loquaciousness or irascibility, are disposed to manifest whether they are provoked to do so. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 2.3.3) | |
| A reaction: We might surmise that such people have internal triggers that get them going, rather than overt ones. The Sun has a disposition to shine, without an external stimulus. The theory of powers says nature is active, rather than being disposed to activity. |
| 23704 | We could analyse dispositions as 'possibilities', with no mention of a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: We might abandon the relational analysis of dispositions (as stimulus-effect), and just say a disposition is a 'possibility', which simply can manifest, however that manifestation comes about. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 2.3.5) | |
| A reaction: [Compressed. He particularly cites Barbara Vetter] A mere 'possibility' seems to cover passive states as well as potentially active ones. A cushion can be dented, but I wouldn't say it was 'disposed' to dent. Radioactive decay is a disposition, though. |
| 23710 | Dispositionalism says modality is in the powers of this world, not outsourced to possible worlds [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: Dispositionalism does not 'outsource' modality to other possible worlds, it roots modality in the powers of concrete individuals in this world. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.3.3) | |
| A reaction: Possible worlds are to abolish modality, by treating it as the non-modal facts of different worlds. I see the dispositional view as vastly superior, because the world is awash with vivid and undeniable potentialities, and one world is better ontology. |
| 9757 | A person viewed as an agent makes no sense without its own future [Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: In forming a particular plan of life, you need to identify with your future in order to be what you are even now. When the person is viewed as an agent, no clear content can be given to the idea of a merely present self. | |
| From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §2) | |
| A reaction: I certainly like the notion that we should treat persons primarily as agents, since I take personhood to be more like a process than an existent entity. If a large brick is about to hit you, you actually have no future, though you think you have. |
| 9758 | To make sense of personal identity, focus on agency rather than experience [Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: A focus on agency makes more sense of personal identity than a focus on experience. | |
| From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §2) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as eminently sensible advice for the beginning of any discussion of personal identity. Her personal bęte noir is Parfit, who focuses on what we are conscious of. |
| 9759 | Theory of action focuses on explanation and prediction; practical action on justification and choice [Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: When we look at our actions from the theoretical standpoint our concern is with their explanation and prediction. When we view them from the practical standpoint our concern is with their justification and choice. | |
| From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §4) | |
| A reaction: A nice distinction, which invites us to further subdivide action theory into two branches, with entirely different concerns. |
| 6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
| Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
| From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |
| 9760 | Self-concern may be a source of pain, or a lack of self-respect, or a failure of responsibility [Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: For utilitarians, self-concern causes needless pain; for Kantians, it evinces a lack of respect for one's own humanity; for the religious moralist, it is a failure of responsibility for what has been placed in one's special care. | |
| From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §5) | |
| A reaction: Worryingly, given my heathenish views, I find the third one the most congenial. If we don't take responsibility for our own selves (e.g. for having a great talent), then no one (even parents) will take responsibility for anything. |
| 9761 | Personal concern for one's own self widens out into concern for the impersonal [Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: The personal concern which begins with one's life in a particular body finds its place in ever-widening spheres of agency and enterprise, developing finally into a personal concern for the impersonal. | |
| From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §5) | |
| A reaction: I am very struck by this nice thought, which comes from a very committed Kantian. It seems to me to capture the modern orthodoxy in ethical thinking - that concern for one's self, rather than altruism, is central, but altruism should follow from it. |
| 23706 | Hume's Dictum says no connections are necessary - so mass and spacetime warping could separate [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: Hume's Dictum says there are no necessary connections between existences, …and also between the distinct properties that individuals instantiate. …It follows that an object's property of mass and its disposition to warp space-time could come apart. | |
| From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This nicely pinpoints the heart of the Humean view, to which scientific essentialists and fans of powers in nature object. The objectors include me. |