Do conceivability arguments work against physicalism if properties are causal powers? By considering three different ways of understanding causal powers and the modality associated with them, I will argue that most, if not all, physicalist powers theorists should not be concerned about the conceivability argument because its conclusion that physicalism is false does not hold in their favoured ontology. I also defend specific powers theories against some recent objections to this strategy, arguing that the conception of properties as powerful blocks (...) conceivability arguments unless a rather implausible form of emergence is true. (shrink)

Yates has recently argued that modal dispositionalism invalidates the axiom. Both Yates and Allen have advanced responses to the objection: Yates’s response proposes installing truth into the possibility biconditional, and Allen’s response requires that all properties be construed as being essentially dispositional. I argue that supporters of Borghini and Williams’s modal dispositionalist theory cannot accept these responses, given critical tenets of their theory. But, since these responses to the objection are the most plausible in the literature, I conclude that the (...) threat that Borghini and Williams’s modal dispositionalist theory invalidates the axiom still looms large. (shrink)