Single Idea 18089

[catalogued under 26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws]

Full Idea

Dispositions are the substantive laws, not, as for Armstrong, of nature in general, but of the nature of individual entities whose dispositional properties they are.

Gist of Idea

Dispositions are not general laws, but laws of the natures of individual entities

Source

Ullin T. Place (Intentionality and the Physical: reply to Mumford [1999], 6)

Book Reference

-: 'The Philosophical Quarterly' [-], p.230


A Reaction

[He notes that Nancy Cartwright 1989 agrees with him] I like this a lot. I tend to denegrate 'laws', because of their dubious ontological status, but this restores laws to the picture, in the place where they belong, in the stuff of the world.