I argue that, on a dispositionalist account of causation and indeed on any other view of causation according to which causation is a real relation, general relativity does not give causal principles a role in explaining phenomena. In doing so, I bring out a surprisingly substantial constraint on adequate views about the explanations and ontology of GR, namely the requirement that such views show how GR can explain motion that is free of disturbing influences.

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.

Ontic structural realism is the view that structures are what is real in the first place in the domain of fundamental physics. The structures are usually conceived as including a primitive modality. However, it has not been spelled out as yet what exactly that modality amounts to. This paper proposes to fill this lacuna by arguing that the fundamental physical structures possess a causal essence, being powers. Applying the debate about causal vs categorical properties in analytic metaphysics to ontic structural (...) realism, I show that the standard argument against categorical and for causal properties holds for structures as well. Structural realism, as a position in the metaphysics of science that is a form of scientific realism, is committed to causal structures. The metaphysics of causal structures is supported by physics, and it can provide for a complete and coherent view of the world that includes all domains of empirical science. (shrink)

Categoricalism is a doctrine about properties according to which the dispositional aspects of properties are not essential to them. In opposition to categoricalism, dispositionalism holds that the dispositional aspects of properties are essential to them. In this article, I shall construct a new version of categoricalism that should be favoured over the other existing versions: Semi-Necessitarian Categoricalism. In Section 2 I shall elaborate on the distinction between categoricalism and dispositionalism and single out different ‘shades’ of both doctrines. I shall also (...) illustrate the main advantages and problems that characterize categoricalism. In Section 3 I shall introduce Necessitarian Categoricalism—as it has been recently developed by Alexander Kelly and Deborah Smith, among others. Even if Necessitarian Categoricalism solves the aforementioned problems of categoricalism, it also loses its main advantages. In Section 4 I shall refine this version of Necessitarian Categoricalism, thus developing Semi-Necessitarian Categoricalism. In Section 5 I shall face some objections. Finally, in Section 6, I shall briefly draw some conclusions and compare my account with other accounts. (shrink)

The dynamics of general relativity is encoded in a set of ten differential equations, the so-called Einstein field equations. It is usually believed that Einstein's equations represent a physical law describing the coupling of spacetime with material fields. However, just six of these equations actually describe the coupling mechanism: the remaining four represent a set of differential relations known as Bianchi identities. The paper discusses the physical role that the Bianchi identities play in general relativity, and investigates whether these identities (...) --qua part of a physical law-- highlight some kind of a posteriori necessity in a Kripkean sense. The inquiry shows that general relativistic physics has an interesting bearing on the debate about the metaphysics of the laws of nature. (shrink)

Discussions about dispositional and categorical properties have become commonplace in metaphysics. Unfortunately, dispositionality and categoricity are disputed notions: usual characterizations are piecemeal and not widely applicable, thus threatening to make agreements and disagreements on the matter merely verbal—and also making it arduous to map a logical space of positions about dispositional and categorical properties in which all parties can comfortably fit. This paper offers a prescription for this important difficulty, or at least an inkling thereof. This will be achieved by (...) comparing pairs of positions and exploring their background metaphysics to discover where alleged agreements and disagreements concerning dispositionality and categoricity really lie; more specifically, the Pure Powers view and the Powerful Qualities view will be under scrutiny. Over this background, the prescription functions by isolating a successful identity-based characterization of categoricity, while abandoning the correspondent identity-based characterization of dispositionality. On the contrary, according to this prescription a property is dispositional if and only if it is solely in virtue of possessing that property that its bearer is assigned a certain dispositional profile. A crucial consequence of this prescription is that, while supporters of the Pure Powers view often characterize their position as an essentialist one, the dispositionality of properties needn’t always be a matter of essence. (shrink)

I argue that scientific and poetic modes of objectivity are perspectival duals: 'views' from and onto basic natural forces, respectively. I ground this analysis in a general account of objectivity, not in terms of either 'universal' or 'inter-subjective' validity, but as receptivity to basic features of reality. Contra traditionalists, bare truth, factual knowledge, and universally valid representation are not inherently valuable. But modern critics who focus primarily on the self-expressive aspect of science are also wrong to claim that our knowledge (...) is or should be ultimately mediated by ourselves. In objective science, we represent nature as a field of phenomena determined by and within explanatorily-basic physical structures that encode the causal impact of elemental physical forces. These causally-basic forces hence ground the possibility of objective scientific theory, even though (I argue) they are systematically excluded from its representational contents. I show how my notions of force and field emerge partly through my effort to naturalize concepts of 'God' and 'Laws' in 17th-century natural philosophy. In science, we use the structure of basic forces' impact to see corresponding objects. We do not see these forces themselves—and this relates to the 'transcendence' of 'God'. I supplement this historical analysis by critiquing standard accounts of objectivity, and by synthesizing elements from neo-Kantian epistemology and current 'structural' realism into a view that I call 'dynamic structuralism'. Finally, I argue that physics systematically relies on passive characterizations of phenomena like inertia and impressed force. Dynamic alternatives that are just as empirically adequate are possible, but they are non-scientific. Poetic objectivity involves a direct presentation of nature as an order of interacting forces. I elaborate first by developing a novel theory of the relation between beauty and sublimity, mediated by a basic category of 'sensory force' (e.g. a 'singing' tone in a beautiful melody). I then describe the interaction between sensory and affective dimensions of aesthetic experience, in relation to an original historical analysis of passion and 'disinterestedness' in Kant, Schiller and Nietzsche. I synthesize these lines of analysis into a critique of the role of 'expression' in art. I also resist 'spectator'-centric aesthetics, in this connection, by developing an account of artistic objectivity in dialogue with Ruskin's critique of the 'pathetic fallacy'. I contrast artistic objectivity with Romantic ideals of self-expression, while elaborating its positive relation to certain currents within Victorian and Modernist aesthetics, including Imagists' stress on 'exteriority'. My project creatively extends Nietzsche's view that philosophical and scientific theories are 'perspectival' expressions of theorists' drives. It is a virtue of Nietzsche's account that he takes the outlet of strong human drives in creative acts of theorizing to be just one among many higher modes of 'will to power' in nature—many of which are totally impersonal. But Nietzsche is still too focused on self-expression or willing one's own power. Objective science involves external forces' 'expression' in and through us, not just 'expressing' our own powers. And Nietzsche's vitalistic 'will to power' must be replaced by a basic ontology that better accommodates inorganic phenomena, like the 'lawful' order of celestial motions. Thus I aim to de-anthropomorphize and 'de-organicize' post-Kantian notions of willful striving and organic development, while preserving for force the primary ontological and evaluative status that theorists from Schiller and Goethe to Schelling and Schlegel to Emerson and Nietzsche attributed to will or to life. (shrink)

In the pure powers ontology (PPO), basic physical properties have wholly dispositional essences. PPO has clear advantages over categoricalist ontologies, which suffer from familiar epistemological and metaphysical problems. However, opponents argue that because it contains no qualitative properties, PPO lacks the resources to individuate powers, and generates a regress. The challenge for those who take such arguments seriously is to introduce qualitative properties without reintroducing the problems that PPO was meant to solve. In this paper, I distinguish the core claim (...) of PPO: (i) basic physical properties have dispositional essences, from a hitherto unnoticed assumption: (ii) the dispositional essences of basic physical properties exclusively involve type-causal relations to other basic physical properties. I reject (ii), making room for a structuralist ontology in which all basic physical properties are pure powers, individuated by their places in a causal structure that includes not only other powers, but also physically realized qualitative properties such as shapes, patterns and structures. Such qualities individuate pure powers in the way that non-mental input and output properties individuate realized mental properties in functionalist theories of mind, except that here it is basic physical powers that are individuated by relations to realized non-powers. I distinguish one Platonic and two Aristotelian version of this theory, and argue that the Aristotelian versions require that grounding is not always a relative fundamentality relation, because the powers ground the qualities that individuate them. By considering ontic structural realism, I argue that symmetric grounding is the best way to make sense of relational individuation in structuralist ontologies, and is therefore no additional commitment of the one proposed here. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 20 Tugby and Yates have recently argued that immanent realism is incompatible with the existence of intrinsic but relationally constituted genuine dispositional properties. The success of Tugby’s and Yates’ arguments depends either on a strong or on a weak assumption about the interworld identity of dispositional properties. In this paper, the author evaluates the strength of the arguments in question under those two assumptions. He also offers an alternative metaphysical picture for the fundamental dispositional properties which (...) rejects these assumptions and, consequently, undermines the arguments themselves. (shrink)

Many think that properties are powers. However, whilst some claim that properties are pure powers, others claim that properties are powerful qualities. In this paper, I argue that the canonical formulation of the powerful qualities view is no different from the pure powers view. Contrary to appearances, the two positions accept the same view of properties. Thus, the debate between them rests on an illusion. I draw out some consequences of this surprising result for issues over property individuation. Along the (...) way, I argue that all existing objections to the powerful qualities view fail. (shrink)

The basic principles of dispositional essentialism do not require that the fundamental spatiotemporal relations are dispositional in nature. Nevertheless, Bird (who defends dispositional monism) argues that they possess dispositional essences in virtue of the fact that the obtaining of these relations can be characterised by the satisfaction of a certain counterfactual. In this paper I argue that his suggestion fails, and so, despite his attempt, the case of the spatiotemporal relations remains the ‘big bad bug’ for the thesis of dispositional (...) monism. (shrink)

According to causal realism, causation is a fundamental feature of the world, consisting in the fact that the properties that there are in the world, including notably the fundamental physical ones, are dispositions or powers to produce certain effects. The paper presents arguments for this view from the metaphysics of properties and the philosophy of physics, pointing out how this view leads to a coherent ontology for both physics as well as biology and the special sciences in general.

The deep differences between E. J. Lowe’s ontology of dispositions and that maintained by other prominent dispositionalists have received relatively little attention in the existing literature on his work. Here I lay out some of these differences, along the way attempting to clarify whether Lowe’s ontology can properly be termed ‘dispositionalist.’ I then argue that the unique features of his ontology allow it to avoid some well-known worries facing standard dispositionalism, while at the same time opening his view to novel (...) objections. My overall aim here is neither to defend nor attack Lowe’s theory, but rather to assess some of its pros and cons and to consider its sometimes surprising implications (implications not always drawn out explicitly by Lowe). (shrink)

Since early modernity, it has often been assumed that miracles are incompatible with the existence of the natural laws utilized in the sciences. This paper argues that this assumption is largely an artifact of empiricist accounts of laws that should be rejected for reasons internal to philosophy of science, and that no such incompatibility arises on the most important alternative interpretations, which treat laws as expressions of forces, dispositions, or causal powers.

This paper aims to discuss two realist conceptions about causation in the light of the general theory of relativity. I first consider the conserved quantity of causation, which explicitly relies on the energy conservation principle. Such principle is however problematic within GTR, mainly because of the dynamical nature of the spacetime structure itself. I then turn to the causal theory of properties, according to which properties are such that insofar as they are certain qualities, they are powers to produce certain (...) effects. In order to be compatible with GTR, such theory has to assume non-trivial global conditions on the spacetime structure; such assumptions seem to deprive the „singularist‟ non-Humean feature of this theory of causation. The question of the possible causal nature of spacetime properties is addressed in the conclusion. (shrink)

The paper makes a case for there being causation in the form of causal properties or causal structures in the domain of fundamental physics. That case is built in the first place on an interpretation of quantum theory in terms of state reductions so that there really are both entangled states and classical properties, GRW being the most elaborate physical proposal for such an interpretation. I then argue that the interpretation that goes back to Everett can also be read in (...) a causal manner, the splitting of the world being conceivable as a causal process. Finally, I mention that the way in which general relativity theory conceives the metrical field opens up the way for a causal conception of the metrical properties as well. (shrink)

The paper first sketches out a reply to the underdetermination challenge and the incommensurability challenge that rebuts the sceptical conclusions of these challenges and that is sufficient to lay the ground for the project of a metaphysics of nature. That metaphysics is as hypothetical as are our scientific theories. The paper then explains how can one can argue for certain views in the metaphysics of nature based on our current fundamental physical theories, namely the commitments to a tenseless theory of (...) time and existence instead of a tensed one, to events instead of substances, and to relations instead of intrinsic properties. Finally, the paper mentions the themes of causation, laws and dispositions. (shrink)