Abstract
Marc Lange and Ann Whittle have independently developed an important challenge to dispositionalism, arguing that dispositions are reducible to primitive subjunctive facts. I argue in reply that by pairing dispositionalism with a certain version of natural-kind essentialism, their objection can be overcome. Moreover, such a marriage carries further advantages for the dispositionalist. My aim is therefore two-fold: to defend dispositionalism, and to give the dispositionalist some new motivation to adopt natural-kind essentialism.
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Notes
For detailed discussion see Mumford (1998, Chap. 3 and 4).
See Handfield (2005).
Laid out in detail in his previously cited works.
“In this paper, it [nominalism] is taken to be the conjunction of two theses. The first is the standard claim that everything that exists is particular, so there are no entities that exist in more than one place at the same time. The second asserts that there are no basic property instances or tropes.” (2009, p. 244).
And though it is a challenge for all dispositionalists, it may be especially troubling to pan-dispositionalists, as their entire ontology of properties would collapse.
See for instance Lange (2009b, pp. 37–42).
“The laws of nature will explain why-necessarily-there are no members of chemical and microphysical kinds that lack certain properties, why of necessity certain properties cluster together in a partially or fully precise manner.” (2007, p. 211) This does not sit comfortably with Bird’s larger dispositionalist ontology.
Among the other advocates of this view are assorted Thomists and other neo-Scholastics who, unfortunately, tend not to engage much with the analytic literature on essentialism. Besides Oderberg, members of these schools who have made such an engagement include Beards (2008), Freddoso (1986), Klima (2002), Kronen (1991), and O’Callaghan (2008).
Or point-like, depending on where one stands on the question of whether fundamental particles are literally indivisible.
See my “Natural-Kind Essentialism and the Operator Theory of Instantiation” (manuscript). This issue is also a chief focus of Oderberg (2011).
So it does not arise for pan-dispositionalists like Bird (2007, 2009) and Bostock (2008). Or at least, it does not arise in the same form. They are in fact faced with an even more vexing problem, namely how to reduce all categorical properties to dispositional properties. It is also worth noting that given their rejection of basic categorical properties, my reply to Lange and Whittle’s reductionism will not work for pan-dispositionalists.
Only on certain versions though; Oderberg’s (2007) hylomorphism could be classed (roughly) as a kind of substratum/attribute theory, and yet that theory’s substratum, prime matter, cannot play this unifying role (for reasons that would take too long to go into here). This is yet another reason for positing natural-kind essences—or substantial forms, on his preferred terminology—within that system.
Reference could also be made to external laws of nature that govern the co-instantiation of properties. But since most dispositionalists want to say that the laws of nature are grounded in dispositions, this would not be an option for them.
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Dumsday, T. Using Natural-Kind Essentialism to Defend Dispositionalism. Erkenn 78, 869–880 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9361-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9361-z