What is the new essentialist asking us to accept? Not that there are natural kinds, nor that there are intrinsic causal powers. These things could be accepted without a commitment to essentialism. They are asking us to accept something akin to the Kripke‐Putnam position: a metaphysical theory about kind‐membership in virtue of essential properties. But Salmon has shown that there is no valid argument for the Kripke‐Putnam position: no valid inference that gets us from reference to essence. Why then should (...) we accept essentialism? A remaining reason is Ellis's argument by display: we should buy essentialism because of the benefits it will bring. But are these benefits real? The problem is that the putative benefits of essentialism – that the laws of nature are necessary, that the problem of induction is solved, and so on – look actually to be the assumptions of Ellis's theory. If that is the case, there is no real benefit to be gained from adopting the theory. The argument for essentialism is therefore underdetermined and it remains possible to accept natural kinds into one's ontology without accepting their corresponding essences. (shrink)

There are three outstanding issues raised by my critics in this volume. The first concerns the nature and status of universals (John Heil). The second is ‘the essential problem’, which is the issue of how to distinguish the essential properties of natural kinds from their accidental ones, and the related question of whether we really need to believe in the essences of natural kinds (Stephen Mumford). The third is that of strong versus weak dispositional essentialism (Alexander Bird), or equivalently, whether (...) there is any place for categorical properties in an essentialist metaphysic (John Heil). This paper addresses these three issues. (shrink)

State of art paper on the topic laws of nature, around the problem of identification what is to be a law of nature. The most prominent theories of contemporary philosophical literature are discussed and analysed, such as: the simple regularity theory, from Hume; the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis best systems theory; the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong theory of laws as relations among universals; Ellis’s essentialist theory; Cartwright’s theory of laws as ceteris paribus laws; the anti-reductionist theories of Lange, Maudlin and Carroll, the anti-realist theories of Mumford, (...) van Fraassen and Giere; etc. (shrink)

This thesis proposes that key, competing theories of dispositions mistake and conflate how we identify, designate and talk about dispositions and dispositional terms for the nature of dispositions and the meaning of dispositional terms when they argue that: a) dispositions are extrinsic properties of their bearers (Boyle 1666) b) all properties are purely dispositional (Bird 2007) c) all properties are purely categorical (there are no dispositional properties) (Armstrong in AMP 1996) d) dispositional and categorical properties are separate and distinct properties (...) (Prior, Pargetter and Jackson 1982). In so doing these theories make unwarranted and unsupported ontological conclusions about dispositions. The thesis traces the principal source of this confusion and conflation to a reliance on the counterfactual analysis of dispositions that wrongly encourages the conflation of a disposition (say fragility) with its manifestation (shattering). There is good reason to hold that the counterfactual analysis of dispositions is false — the truth of a counterfactual statement (such as “if x were dropped x would break”) is neither necessary nor sufficient for the truth of a dispositional ascription (such as “x is fragile”). (shrink)

Science depends on judgments of the bearing of evidence on theory. Scientists must judge whether an observation or the result of an experiment supports, disconfirms, or is simply irrelevant to a given hypothesis. Similarly, scientists may judge that, given all the available evidence, a hypothesis ought to be accepted as correct or nearly so, rejected as false, or neither. Occasionally, these evidential judgments can be made on deductive grounds. If an experimental result strictly contradicts a hypothesis, then the truth of (...) the data deductively entails the falsity of the hypothesis. In the great majority of cases, however, the connection between evidence and hypothesis is non-demonstrative, or inductive. In particular, this is so whenever a general hypothesis is inferred to be correct on the basis of the available data, since the truth of the data will not deductively entail the truth of the hypothesis. It always remains possible that the hypothesis is false even though the data are correct. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker’s causal theory of properties is an important starting place for some contemporary metaphysical perspectives concerning the nature of properties. In this paper, I discuss the causal and intrinsic criteria that Shoemaker stipulates for the identity of genuine properties and relations, and address George Molnar’s criticism that holding both criteria presents an unbridgeable hypothesis in the causal theory of properties. The causal criterion requires that properties and relations contribute to the causal powers of objects if they are to be (...) deemed genuine rather than ‘mere-Cambridge’. The intrinsic criterion requires that all genuine properties and relations be intrinsic. Molnar’s S-property argument says that these criteria conflict if one considers extrinsic spatiotemporal properties and relations to contribute causally. In this paper, I argue that a solution to the contradiction that Molnar identifies involves a denial of discreteness between objects, leading to a power holist perspective and a resulting deflationary account of intrinsicality. (shrink)

Whilst the concept of causal powers is central to much post-positivist social science in general, and to critical realism in particular, it has not been significantly developed by critical realists since the initial work of Harré and Madden and Bhaskar in the mid-1970s. To deepen our understanding of powers we need to start with a ‘package’ of related terms. In §1 of the paper I introduce this package, clear up some terminological ambiguity and inconsistency, and focus the discussion upon things, (...) properties and powers. The real problems begin when we try to figure out how things, properties and powers relate to one another. In §2 I introduce and evaluate three possible ontologies: an ontology where powers are primary; an ontology where properties are primary; and an ontology where neither properties, powers are primary, but all emerge to form a unity. The last ontology is defended. §3 deals with ambiguities surrounding three other terms that often crop up when discussing powers, namely, dispositional properties, transfactuals and processes. The net result is a far less ambiguous concept of powers, firmly anchored in an ontology of things, properties and powers as a unity. (shrink)

Grounding is typically associated to metaphysical explanation on the basis of the explanatory role’s being characteristic of grounding as well. Some even say that all what metaphysical explanation does is tracking the grounding relation. However, recently Maurin has argued that grounding does not “inherit” its properties from metaphysical explanation and, consequently, we should be “separatists”. In this paper separatism will be defended from the perspective of metaphysical explanation thus giving a turn to the separatist strategy. In particular, the structural difference (...) between grounding and metaphysical explanation will be pointed out as affecting also the explanatory function. It will be shown how dispositions and essentialist claims play different roles in the two theories. Lastly, it will be claimed that the two theories diverge on accounting for law-like and accidental generalizations. Provided these arguments are sound, there will be good reason to tell metaphysical explanation apart from grounding. (shrink)

Natural kind realists believe that the world is carved out into kinds of things. Critiques addressed towards natural kind realism aimed at showing the difficulties in discerning a universal spatial structure and behavior common to all the members of an alleged kind. Little or no attention, however, has been given to the temporal structure of a natural kind. After showing (in the first section) that some kinds are indeed temporally extended, the second section of the paper argues that there is (...) no non-arbitrary way of tracing the natural temporal structure of a kind. The accrued result poses a novel problem for natural kind theorists, as it clashes with the basic expectancy that if a kind is indeed natural, both its spatial and temporal boundaries should be (at least in principle) discernible. (shrink)

The recent holistic trends in metaphysics are surveyed here and a tentative typology is offered. The non-linear mode of composition is suggested as the key feature of holism, apart from its familiar non-reductionism and emergentism. It is argued that those holistic views are promising that refrain from extreme relationalism based on the denial of there being self-subsistence particulars; also, those refraining from the postulation of an unarticulated all-embracing whole where both relations and terms are denied to be genuine ontological items. (...) The further suggestion is that a trade-off between the holistic perspective and the limits imposed upon it in the form of built-in confinements may help in making this metaphysics go. (shrink)