Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Reality as Persistence and Resistance.Mahdi Khalili - 2023 - Perspectives on Science 32 (2):184-206.
    This paper proposes a way to understand the meaning of reality (in science) on the basis of the concepts of persistence and resistance. It first supports the ontological view that reality consists of persistent potentialities, which resist being excluded from existence. A study of the cases of the Higgs boson and the hypothetical Ϝ-particle helps to illustrate how real entities persist and resist. The paper then suggests that, perceptually speaking, the results of ordinary perception or observational processes persistently appear under (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Anthropological Crisis or Crisis in Moral Status: a Philosophy of Technology Approach to the Moral Consideration of Artificial Intelligence.Joan Llorca Albareda - 2024 - Philosophy and Technology 37 (1):1-26.
    The inquiry into the moral status of artificial intelligence (AI) is leading to prolific theoretical discussions. A new entity that does not share the material substrate of human beings begins to show signs of a number of properties that are nuclear to the understanding of moral agency. It makes us wonder whether the properties we associate with moral status need to be revised or whether the new artificial entities deserve to enter within the circle of moral consideration. This raises the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • The Object-Activity Theory of Events.Stuart Glennan - 2022 - Erkenntnis 89 (2):503-519.
    Events are things like explosions, floods, weddings or births. Both in common-sense and scientific usage, events are spatially and temporally bounded doings or happenings that involve activity and change. Philosophical theories of events have not, generally speaking, honored this feature of events. Probably the most widely discussed account, due to Jaegwon Kim, holds that events are exemplifications of properties at times. But properties are things like temperature, shape, color, solidity or fragility; they are not doings or happenings, but havings. In (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Dormant and active emotional states.Rowland Stout - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2).
    The paper is concerned with the metaphysics of emotion. It defends the claim that all emotional states, whether dormant or active, are dispositional, arguing against the prevailing view that dispositional emotional states are dispositions to go into actual emotional states. A clear distinction may be made between first-order and second-order emotional dispositions, where second-order emotional dispositions are dispositions of emotional sensitivity and first-order emotional dispositions are the emotional states themselves. Active emotional states are treated as dispositional emotional states in the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Endurance and parthood.Matteo Benocci - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Reading
    This is a work in analytic metaphysics, which addresses a cluster of interrelated issues at the interface of mereology and persistence over time. In particular, it outlines a defence of a version of Endurance Theory according to which every enduring object is either a mereological simple or a mere sum of mereological simples. It includes, among other things, a proposal of a new way of framing the debate between Endurance Theory and Four-Dimensionalism, a defence of Endurance Theory over Four-Dimensionalism, arguments (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions.Arvid Båve - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (6):1751-1771.
    Semantic dispositionalism is roughly the view that meaning a certain thing by a word, or possessing a certain concept, consists in being disposed to do something, e.g., infer a certain way. Its main problem is that it seems to have so many and disparate exceptions. People can fail to infer as required due to lack of logical acumen, intoxication, confusion, deviant theories, neural malfunctioning, and so on. I present a theory stating possession conditions of concepts that are counterfactuals, rather than (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Free Will and Mental Powers.Niels van Miltenburg & Dawa Ometto - 2020 - Topoi 39 (5):1155-1165.
    In this paper, we investigate how contemporary metaphysics of powers can further an understanding of agent-causal theories of free will. The recent upsurge of such ontologies of powers and the understanding of causation it affords promises to demystify the notion of an agent-causal power. However, as we argue pace, the very ubiquity of powers also poses a challenge to understanding in what sense exercises of an agent’s power to act could still be free—neither determined by external circumstances, nor random, but (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Analytic Metaphysics versus Naturalized Metaphysics: The Relevance of Applied Ontology.Baptiste Le Bihan & Adrien Barton - 2021 - Erkenntnis 86 (1):21-37.
    The relevance of analytic metaphysics has come under criticism: Ladyman & Ross, for instance, have suggested do discontinue the field. French & McKenzie have argued in defense of analytic metaphysics that it develops tools that could turn out to be useful for philosophy of physics. In this article, we show first that this heuristic defense of metaphysics can be extended to the scientific field of applied ontology, which uses constructs from analytic metaphysics. Second, we elaborate on a parallel by French (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Barry Smith an sich.Gerald J. Erion & Gloria Zúñiga Y. Postigo (eds.) - 2017 - Cosmos + Taxis.
    Festschrift in Honor of Barry Smith on the occasion of his 65th Birthday. Published as issue 4:4 of the journal Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization. Includes contributions by Wolfgang Grassl, Nicola Guarino, John T. Kearns, Rudolf Lüthe, Luc Schneider, Peter Simons, Wojciech Żełaniec, and Jan Woleński.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • BFO and DOLCE: So Far, So Close….Nicola Guarino - 2017 - Cosmos + Taxis 4 (4):10-18.
    A survey of the similarities and differences between BFO and DOLCE, and of the mutual interactions between Nicola Guarino and Barry Smith.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Humeanism and Exceptions in the Fundamental Laws of Physics.Billy Wheeler - 2017 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 21 (3):317-337.
    It has been argued that the fundamental laws of physics do not face a ‘problem of provisos’ equivalent to that found in other scientific disciplines (Earman, Roberts and Smith 2002) and there is only the appearance of exceptions to physical laws if they are confused with differential equations of evolution type (Smith 2002). In this paper I argue that even if this is true, fundamental laws in physics still pose a major challenge to standard Humean approaches to lawhood, as they (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Beyond the Postmetaphysical Turn: Ethics and Metaphysics in Critical Theory.Craig Reeves - 2016 - Journal of Critical Realism 15 (3):217-244.
    This article explores the relationship between ethics and metaphysics in critical theory through immanent criticism of Fabian Freyenhagen's reconstruction of Adorno. Endorsing Freyenhagen's overall defence of Adorno's position, it argues that several important features of Adorno's position as Freyenhagen interprets it can be made intelligible only on broadly Aristotelian metaphysical presuppositions. These should be thematized explicitly rather than ignored. Moreover, these metaphysical presuppositions are on independent grounds plausible, as recent Aristotelian and critical realist work has indicated, and special difficulties arising (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Substance Causation.Michele Paolini Paoletti - 2023 - Philosophia 51 (1):287-308.
    I defend the thesis that, if there are substances, substance causation (i.e., causation by substances) is the only sort of causation in the universe – or the only fundamental sort. Subsequently, I develop an account of substance causation that is partly grounded on a peculiar interpretation of absolute change (i.e., of entities' coming and ceasing to be) and qualitative change, on some ontological assumptions about modes (i.e., individual properties that ontologically depend on their bearers) and powers. Finally, I reply to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Are All Primitives Created Equal?J. T. M. Miller - 2018 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 56 (2):273-292.
    Primitives are both important and unavoidable, and which set of primitives we endorse will greatly shape our theories and how those theories provide solutions to the problems that we take to be important. After introducing the notion of a primitive posit, I discuss the different kinds of primitives that we might posit. Following Cowling (2013), I distinguish between ontological and ideological primitives, and, following Benovsky (2013) between functional and content views of primitives. I then propose that these two distinctions cut (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Procedures, Products and Pictures.Rom Harré & Jean-Pierre Llored - 2018 - Philosophy 93 (2):167-186.
    In several recent publications in the philosophy of chemistry we have made use of a repertoire of analytical concepts to guide our investigations. Perhaps studies of other sophisticated knowledge garnering practices could benefit from adopting this analytical scheme if we want to understand their merits and drawbacks. Our suggestions for shaping methodologies for philosophical studies in particular fields of interest includes both the natural sciences, legal systems in action, economies and their management, warfare, preparing the dishes of a cuisine, and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • The Powers View of Properties, Fundamental Ontology, and Williams’s Arguments for Static Dispositions.Joseph A. Baltimore - 2019 - Erkenntnis 84 (2):437-453.
    This paper examines the need for static dispositions within the basic ontology of the powers view of properties. To lend some focus, Neil Williams’s well developed case for static dispositions is considered. While his arguments are not necessarily intended to address fundamental ontology, they still provide a useful starting point, a springboard for diving into the deeper metaphysical waters of the dispositionalist approach. Within that ontological context, this paper contends that Williams’s arguments fail to establish the need to posit static (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • (1 other version)An Explanatory Virtue for Endurantist Presentism.Robert E. Pezet - 2019 - Philosophia 47 (1):157-182.
    This essay outlines an explanatory virtue of presentism: its unique ability amongst temporal metaphysics to deliver a partial explanation of the conservational character of natural laws. That explanation relies on presentism, uniquely amongst temporal metaphysics, being able to support an endurantist account of persistence. In particular, after reconsidering a former argument for endurantism entailing presentism by Merricks, a new argument for this entailment, is expounded. Before delivering the explanation of the conservational character of natural laws, a brief account of that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Causation, dispositions, and physical occasionalism.Walter J. Schultz & Lisanne D'Andrea-Winslow - 2017 - Zygon 52 (4):962-983.
    Even though theistic philosophers and scientists agree that God created, sustains, and providentially governs the physical universe and even though much has been published in general regarding divine action, what is needed is a fine-grained, conceptually coherent account of divine action, causation, dispositions, and laws of nature consistent with divine aseity, satisfying the widely recognized adequacy conditions for any account of dispositions.1 Such an account would be a basic part of a more comprehensive theory of divine action in relation to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Knowledge and the permissibility of action.N. Ángel Pinillos - 2019 - Synthese 196 (5):2021-2043.
    I argue in favor of a certain connection between knowledge and the permissibility of action. On this approach, we do not think of the relation between those notions as reflecting a universal epistemic principle. Instead, we think of it as something resembling a platitude from folk psychology. With the help of some elementary tools from the logic of normativity and counterfactuals, I attempt to establish the connection by deriving it from more elementary principles. The new formulation involves a ceteris paribus (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • (1 other version)The Hysteresis Effect: Theorizing Mismatch in Action.Michael Strand & Omar Lizardo - 2017 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 47 (2):164-194.
    Widespread reliance on representationalist understandings commit social scientists to either partially or totally decouple belief from reality, limiting the domain of phenomena that can be treated by belief as an analytic concept. Developing the contrastive notion of practical belief, we introduce the hysteresis effect as a situational phenomenon involving the systematic production of agent-environment mismatches and argue for its placement as a central problem for the theory of action. Revealing the dynamic, embodied conservation of belief in the temporality of practice, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Are Character Traits Dispositions?Maria Alvarez - 2017 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 80:69-86.
    The last three decades have seen much important work on powers and dispositions: what they are and how they are related to the phenomena that constitute their manifestation. These debates have tended to focus on ‘paradigmatic’ dispositions, i.e. physical dispositions such as conductivity, elasticity, radioactivity, etc. It is often assumed, implicitly or explicitly, that the conclusions of these debates concerning physical dispositions can be extended to psychological dispositions, such as beliefs, desires or character traits. In this paper I identify some (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Agency and Practical Abilities.Will Small - 2017 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 80:235-264.
    Though everyday life accords a great deal of significance to practical abilities—such as the ability to walk, to speak French, to play the piano—philosophers of action pay surprisingly little attention to them. By contrast, abilities are discussed in various other philosophical projects. From these discussions, a partial theory of abilities emerges. If the partial theory—which is at best adequate only to a few examples of practical abilities—were correct, then philosophers of action would be right to ignore practical abilities, because they (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • I’m just sitting around doing nothing: on exercising intentional agency in omitting to act.Andrei A. Buckareff - 2018 - Synthese 195 (10):4617-4635.
    In some recent work on omissions, it has been argued that the causal theory of action cannot account for how agency is exercised in intentionally omitting to act in the same way it explains how agency is exercised in intentional action. Thus, causalism appears to provide us with an incomplete picture of intentional agency. I argue that causalists should distinguish causalism as a general theory of intentional agency from causalism as a theory of intentional action. Specifically, I argue that, while (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Property Identity.Paul Audi - 2016 - Philosophy Compass 11 (12):829-840.
    The question of how properties are individuated is extremely important. Consider the following proposals. To be in pain is to be in a certain neurological state. To be red is to appear red to normal observers in standard conditions. To be obligatory is to maximize the good. Each makes a claim of property identity. Each is a substantive metaphysical thesis of wide interest. None can be studied with due scrutiny in the absence of a general account of property identity. Here, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Absences as Latent Potentialities.David Hommen - 2016 - Philosophical Papers 45 (3):401-435.
    Absences, i.e., agential omissions and forbearances, but also ‘natural’ negative states and events beyond the sphere of human agency, seem to be part and parcel of the real world. Yet, it is exactly the putative reality of absences that strikes many philosophers as utterly mysterious, if not entirely unintelligible. As a promising approach towards solving the problem of real absences, I wish to explore the idea that absences are latent potentialities. To this end, I shall investigate what potentialities are, what (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Do intuitions about Frankfurt-style cases rest on an internalist prejudice?Florian Cova & Hichem Naar - 2016 - Philosophical Explorations 19 (3):290-305.
    “Frankfurt-style cases” are widely considered as having refuted the Principle of Alternate Possibilities by presenting cases in which an agent is morally responsible even if he could not have done otherwise. However, Neil Levy has recently argued that FSCs fail because our intuitions about cases involving counterfactual interveners are inconsistent, and this inconsistency is best explained by the fact that our intuitions about such cases are grounded in an internalist prejudice about the location of mental states and capacities. In response (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The Impossibility of Emergent Conscious Causal Powers.Pat Lewtas - 2017 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (3):475-487.
    This paper argues that emergent conscious properties can't bestow emergent causal powers. It supports this conclusion by way of a dilemma. Necessarily, an emergent conscious property brings about its effects actively or other than actively. If actively, then, the paper argues, the emergent conscious property can't have causal powers at all. And if other than actively, then, the paper argues, the emergentist finds himself committed to incompatible accounts of causation.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Do Dispositions and Propensities have a role in the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics? Some Critical Remarks.Mauro Dorato - unknown - Synthese Library.
    In order to tackle the question posed by the title – notoriously answered in the positive, among others, by Heisenberg, Margenau, Popper and Redhead – I first discuss some attempts at distinguishing dispositional from non-dispositional properties, and then relate the distinction to the formalism of quantum mechanics. Since any answer to the question titling the paper must be interpretation-dependent, I review some of the main interpretations of quantum mechanics in order to argue that the ontology of theories regarding “wave collapse” (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • (1 other version)A Dispositional Theory of Possibility.Neil E. Williams Andrea Borghini - 2008 - Dialectica 62 (1):21-41.
    The paper defends a naturalistic version of modal actualism according to which what is metaphysically possible is determined by dispositions found in the actual world. We argue that there is just one world – this one – and that all genuine possibilities are grounded in the dispositions exemplified in it. This is the case whether or not those dispositions are manifested. As long as the possibility is one that would obtain were the relevant disposition manifested, it is a genuine possibility. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   50 citations  
  • How (Not) To Be a Humean Structuralist.Kerry McKenzie - 2013 - In Vassilios Karakostas & Dennis Dieks (eds.), EPSA11 Perspectives and Foundational Problems in Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer. pp. 307--318.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Preface.Raphael van Riel & Albert Newen - 2011 - Philosophia Naturalis 48 (1):5-8.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The cost of truthmaker maximalism.Mark Jago - 2013 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 43 (4):460-474.
    According to truthmaker theory, particular truths are true in virtue of the existence of particular entities. Truthmaker maximalism holds that this is so for all truths. Negative existential and other ‘negative’ truths threaten the position. Despite this, maximalism is an appealing thesis for truthmaker theorists. This motivates interest in parsimonious maximalist theories, which do not posit extra entities for truthmaker duty. Such theories have been offered by David Lewis and Gideon Rosen, Ross Cameron, and Jonathan Schaffer. But these theories cannot (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • (1 other version)Por uma metafísica de tramas: o mundo sem arché.Hilan Bensusan & Tomás Ribeiro Cardoso - 2012 - Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 53 (125):281-298.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Regress of Pure Powers Revisited.Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson - 2012 - European Journal of Philosophy 23 (3):529-541.
    The paper aims to elucidate in better detail than before the dispute about whether or not dispositional monism—the view that all basic properties are pure powers—entails a vicious infinite regress. Particular focus is on Alexander Bird's and George Molnar's attempts to show that the arguments professing to demonstrate a vicious regress are inconclusive because they presuppose what they aim to prove, notably that powers are for their nature dependent on something else. I argue that Bird and Molnar are mistaken. It (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • (1 other version)Causal processes and propensities in quantum mechanics.Mauricio Suárez - 2004 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 19 (3):271-300.
    In an influential article published in 1982, Bas Van Fraassen developed an argument against causal realism on the basis of an analysis of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations of quantum mechanics. Several philosophers of science and experts in causal inference -including some causal realists like Wesley Salmon- have accepted Van Fraassen’s argument, interpreting it as a proof that the quantum correlations cannot be given any causal model. In this paper I argue that Van Fraassen’s article can also be interpreted as a good (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • (1 other version)Causal properties and conservative reduction.Michael Esfeld - unknown
    The paper argues in favour of a causal-functional theory of all properties including the physical ones and a conception of properties as tropes or modes in the sense of particular ways that objects are. It shows how these premises open up a version of functionalism according to which the properties on which the special sciences focus are identical with configurations of physical properties and thereby causally efficacious without there being any threat of eliminativism.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Do we sense modalities with our sense modalities?1.Bence Nanay - 2011 - Ratio 24 (3):299-310.
    It has been widely assumed that we do not perceive dispositional properties. I argue that there are two ways of interpreting this assumption. On the first, extensional, interpretation whether we perceive dispositions depends on a complex set of metaphysical commitments. But if we interpret the claim in the second, intensional, way, then we have no reason to suppose that we do not perceive dispositional properties. The two most important and influential arguments to the contrary fail.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Moral Principles Are Not Moral Laws.Luke Robinson - 2007 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 2 (3):1-22.
    What are moral principles? The assumption underlying much of the generalism–particularism debate in ethics is that they are (or would be) moral laws: generalizations or some special class thereof, such as explanatory or counterfactual-supporting generalizations. I argue that this law conception of moral principles is mistaken. For moral principles do at least three things that moral laws cannot do, at least not in their own right: explain certain phenomena, provide particular kinds of support for counterfactuals, and ground moral necessities, “necessary (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Moral Reality: A Defence of Moral Realism.Caj Strandberg - 2004 - Lund University.
    The main aim of this thesis is to defend moral realism. In chapter 1, I argue that moral realism is best understood as the view that moral sentences have truth-value, there are moral properties that make some moral sentences true, and moral properties are not reducible to non- moral properties. Realism is contrasted with non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism, which, in brief, deny, and, respectively. In the introductory chapter, it is also argued that there are some prima facie reasons to assume (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Scientific Explanation and Moral Explanation.Uri D. Leibowitz - 2011 - Noûs 45 (3):472-503.
    Moral philosophers are, among other things, in the business of constructing moral theories. And moral theories are, among other things, supposed to explain moral phenomena. Consequently, one’s views about the nature of moral explanation will influence the kinds of moral theories one is willing to countenance. Many moral philosophers are (explicitly or implicitly) committed to a deductive model of explanation. As I see it, this commitment lies at the heart of the current debate between moral particularists and moral generalists. In (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Designing visual languages for description logics.Brian R. Gaines - 2009 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 18 (2):217-250.
    Semantic networks were developed in cognitive science and artificial intelligence studies as graphical knowledge representation and inference tools emulating human thought processes. Formal analysis of the representation and inference capabilities of the networks modeled them as subsets of standard first-order logic (FOL), restricted in the operations allowed in order to ensure the tractability that seemed to characterize human reasoning capabilities. The graphical network representations were modeled as providing a visual language for the logic. Sub-sets of FOL targeted on knowledge representation (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • On linking dispositions and conditionals.David Manley & Ryan Wasserman - 2008 - Mind 117 (465):59-84.
    Analyses of dispositional ascriptions in terms of conditional statements famously confront the problems of finks and masks. We argue that conditional analyses of dispositions, even those tailored to avoid finks and masks, face five further problems. These are the problems of: (i) Achilles' heels, (ii) accidental closeness, (iii) comparatives, (iv) explaining context sensitivity, and (v) absent stimulus conditions. We conclude by offering a proposal that avoids all seven of these problems.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   182 citations  
  • Dispositions and the Argument from Science.Neil E. Williams - 2011 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (1):71 - 90.
    Central to the debate between Humean and anti-Humean metaphysics is the question of whether dispositions can exist in the absence of categorical properties that ground them (that is, where the causal burden is shifted on to categorical properties on which the dispositions would therefore supervene). Dispositional essentialists claim that they can; categoricalists reject the possibility of such ?baseless? dispositions, requiring that all dispositions must ultimately have categorical bases. One popular argument, recently dubbed the ?Argument from Science?, has appeared in one (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • Dispositions, relational properties and the quantum world.Mauro Dorato - 2017 - In Maximilien Kistler (ed.), Dispositions and Causal Powers, Routledge, 2017,. London: Routledge. pp. pp.249-270..
    In this paper I examine the role of dispositional properties in the most frequently discussed interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. After offering some motivation for this project, I briefly characterize the distinction between non-dispositional and dispositional properties in the context of quantum mechanics by suggesting a necessary condition for dispositionality – namely contextuality – and, consequently, a sufficient condition for non-dispositionality, namely non-contextuality. Having made sure that the distinction is conceptually sound, I then analyze the plausibility of the widespread, monistic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • (1 other version)Necessarily, salt dissolves in water.Alexander Bird - 2001 - Analysis 61 (4):267–274.
    In this paper I aim to show that a certain law of nature, namely that common salt (sodium chloride) dissolves in water, is metaphysically necessary. The importance of this result is that it conflicts with a widely shared intuition that the laws of nature (most if not all) are contingent. There have been debates over whether some laws, such as Newton’s second law, might be definitional of their key terms and hence necessary. But the law that salt dissolves in water (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   40 citations  
  • Structuralism as a form of scientific realism.Anjan Chakravartty - 2004 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 18 (2 & 3):151 – 171.
    Structural realism has recently re-entered mainstream discussions in the philosophy of science. The central notion of structure, however, is contested by both advocates and critics. This paper briefly reviews currently prominent structuralist accounts en route to proposing a metaphysics of structure that is capable of supporting the epistemic aspirations of realists, and that is immune to the charge most commonly levelled against structuralism. This account provides an alternative to the existing epistemic and ontic forms of the position, incorporating elements of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  • Structural properties.Alexander Bird - 2002 - In Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra & Hallvard Lillehammer (eds.), Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D.H. Mellor. New York: Routledge. pp. 155-68.
    Dispositional essentialists claim that dispositional properties are essentially dispositional: a property would not be the property it is unless it carried with it certain dispositional powers. Categoricalists about dispositional properties deny this, asserting that the same properties might have had different dispositional powers, had the contingent laws of nature been otherwise.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Innate cognitive capacities.Muhammad ali KhAlidi - 2007 - Mind and Language 22 (1):92-115.
    This paper attempts to articulate a dispositional account of innateness that applies to cognitive capacities. After criticizing an alternative account of innateness proposed by Cowie (1999) and Samuels (2002), the dispositional account of innateness is explicated and defended against a number of objections. The dispositional account states that an innate cognitive capacity (output) is one that has a tendency to be triggered as a result of impoverished environmental conditions (input). Hence, the challenge is to demonstrate how the input can be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Ontological modeling of manufacturing resources.Emilio M. Sanfilippo, Walter Terkaj & Stefano Borgo - 2021 - Applied ontology 16 (1):87-109.
    Standards and ontologies for manufacturing understand resources differently. Because of this heterogeneity, misunderstandings arise concerning the basic features that characterize them. The purpose of the paper is to investigate how to ontologically model resources with the goal of facilitating the development of knowledge representation models for manufacturing. By reviewing the literature, we discuss and compare three approaches for the representation of resources depending on whether they are conceived in connection to either processes, plans or goals. By addressing the advantages and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Dispositional Nature of Phenomenal Properties.Simone Gozzano - 2018 - Topoi 39 (5):1045-1055.
    According to non-reductive physicalism, mental properties of the phenomenal sort are essentially different from physical properties, and cannot be reduced to them. This being a quarrel about properties, I draw on the categorical / dispositional distinction to discuss this non-reductive claim. Typically, non-reductionism entails a categorical view of phenomenal properties. Contrary to this, I will argue that phenomenal properties, usually characterized by what it is like to have them, are mainly the manifestation of dispositional properties. This paper is thus divided (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations