Dispositionalists try to provide an account of modality—possibility, necessity, and the counterfactual conditional—in terms of dispositions. But there may be a tension between dispositionalist accounts of possibility on the one hand, and of counterfactuals on the other. Dispositionalists about possibility must hold that there are no impossible dispositions, i.e., dispositions with metaphysically impossible stimulus and/or manifestation conditions; dispositionalist accounts of counterfactuals, if they allow for non-vacuous counterpossibles, require that there are such impossible dispositions. I argue, first, that there are in (...) fact no impossible dispositions; and second, that the dispositionalist can nevertheless acknowledge the non-vacuity of some counterpossibles. The strategy in the second part is one of ‘divide and conquer’ that is not confined to the dispositionalist: it consists in arguing that counterpossibles, when non-vacuous, are read epistemically and are therefore outside the purview of a dispositional account. (shrink)

Dispositionalism about modality is the view that metaphysical modality is a matter of the dispositions possessed by actual objects. In a recent paper, David Yates has raised an important worry about the formal adequacy of dispositionalism. This paper responds to Yates’s worry by developing a reply that Yates discusses briefly but dismisses as ad hoc: an appeal to a ’plenitude of powers’ including such powers as the necessarily always manifested power for 2+2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} (...) \begin{document}$$2+2$$\end{document} to be 4. I argue that the reply is not ad hoc at all, by defending the metaphysics of dispositions that should underly it. I then argue, first, that a proper understanding of dispositions’ degrees provides us with an argument for such necessarily always manifested dispositions; second, that all the natural attempts to block that argument can be resisted without being ad hoc; and third, that pragmatic considerations explain our intuitive resistance to the ascription of necessarily always manifested dispositions. Dispositionalism can be formally adequate after all. (shrink)

On its usual interpretation, the Barcan Formula—◊∃_xB_ → ∃_x_◊_B_—says that, if there could have been something that is such and such a way, then there is something that could have been that way. It is traditionally held that contingentist actualists should—indeed, must—reject the Barcan Formula. I argue that contingentist actualists should—indeed, must—endorse the Barcan Formula, at least assuming a standard, Tarskian conception of truth and truth preservation. I end by proposing a logic for contingentist actualists that validates the Barcan Formula. (...) This logic has the surprising feature of also validating the Converse Barcan Formula, □∀_xB_ → ∀_x_□_B_, while still invalidating related formulas—such as □∀_x_□∃_y x_ = _y_ (NNE)—that contingentist actualists should reject. It does this by employing models with fixed domains but assignments to the identity predicate that vary across worlds. (shrink)

As Price (2009) famously mused, if a philosopher were to be magically transported, perhaps through means of time travel, from the 1950s to the modern day, they would indeed be shocked by the resurgence of metaphysics in the analytic tradition. Most of all, perhaps, they would be shocked by the popularity of power metaphysics. What a strange item to have in a philosopher’s curriculum, they might think: after all, didn’t David Hume claim that “[t]here are no ideas which can occur (...) in metaphysics more obscure and uncertain than those of power, force, energy, or necessary connection”? Indeed, much has changed since then. At the pain of using overly vague terminology, we can call “power metaphysics” the subdiscipline of metaphysics interested in the development and evaluation of a family of positions which we will refer to under the umbrella term of “dispositionalism”. According to dispositionalists, the world we inhabit is also populated by genuine and irreducible powers, dispositions, and capacities of objects. (shrink)

In order to defend mental explanations dualists may appeal to dispositions (powers). By accepting a powers theory of causation, a dualist can more plausibly defend mental explanations that are given independently of physical explanations. Accepting a power-based theory still comes with a price. Absences and double preventers are not causes in a powers theory, and solutions based on them can only defend their explanatory relevance in mental explanations. There is still a chance that such mental explanations can be causal explanations, (...) though they do not refer to real causes. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate in the metaphysics of dispositions regarding which type of modality governs their manifestation. This paper assumes as its default position the view that dispositions manifest by conditional necessity; that is, when in appropriate circumstances dispositions manifest necessarily. From this standpoint, the paper engages critically with an existing alternative in the literature, put forward most prominently by Mumford and Anjum, and known as dispositional modality. According to this latter view, even when in appropriate manifestation conditions, dispositions (...) only merely tend towards their manifestation. By raising difficulties for this alternative, the paper offers indirect support for the conditional necessity view. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate in the metaphysics of dispositions regarding which type of modality governs their manifestation. This paper assumes as its default position the view that dispositions manifest by conditional necessity; that is, when in appropriate circumstances dispositions manifest necessarily. From this standpoint, the paper engages critically with an existing alternative in the literature, put forward most prominently by Mumford and Anjum, and known as dispositional modality. According to this latter view, even when in appropriate manifestation conditions, dispositions (...) only merely tend towards their manifestation. By raising difficulties for this alternative, the paper offers indirect support for the conditional necessity view. (shrink)

A number of metaphysicians of powers have argued that we need to distinguish the actualization of a power from the effects of that actualization. This distinction, I argue, has important consequences for the dispositional theory of belief. In particular, it suggests that dispositionalists have in effect been trying to define belief, not in terms of its actualization, but instead in terms of the effects of its actualization. As a general rule, however, powers are to be defined in terms of their (...) actualizations. I thus argue that belief has just one actualization, and that that actualization is a particular kind of mental act that I call a judgment. I explain the resulting view—that belief is the power to judge—and argue that it has some important advantages, not only over other dispositional theories of belief, but also over categorical theories of belief. Since these options are apparently exhaustive, it thus has important advantages over all other theories of belief. (shrink)

Dispositions (powers, potentialities) have become popular in metaphysics in recent years, and some of their proponents are advertising them as the best metaphysical grounds for modality. This project has a logical as well as an ontological side: dispositionalists offer modal and counterfactual semantics that make no use of possible worlds. I argue that, as a result of their counterfactual semantics, dispositionalists are in fact committed to entities that play the same theoretical role as possible worlds. Roughly, the claim is that (...) certain counterfactuals (ones that concern 'very large' states) force the dispositionalist to posit world-sized states that play the theoretical role of worlds. As a result, dispositionalists can (and perhaps should) make use of the mainstream framework (Kripke frames and the Lewis–Stalnaker counterfactual semantics) even if they ground all modal facts in dispositions. (shrink)

Some authors maintain that anti-intellectualism faces a general epistemic problem of explaining the cognitive aspect of know-how, and answering the question of why know-how as a kind of disposition is to be considered a distinct kind of knowledge. In the present paper, I argue for a solution to this problem, the central idea of which is that there is a broader sense of knowledge to which both knowledge-that and knowledge-how belong. I present two versions of this solution. According to the (...) first version, know-how is a distinct kind of knowledge since there is a general analyzable category of knowledge under which both know-how and know-that fall. This general category is analyzed into three components: a success component, an externalist anti-luck component, and an internalist anti-luck component. According to the second version of the solution, know-how is a distinct kind of knowledge since there is an unanalyzable analogical conception of knowledge that comes first in both the theoretical realm (as propositional knowledge) and the practical realm (as know-how). Both versions of the solution are plausible since they distinguish between know-how and knacks in an anti-intellectualist manner by positing that there is an internal relation between know-how and non-propositional intentionality. (shrink)

Throughout the years, Sosa has taken different views on the safety condition on knowledge. In his early work, he endorsed the safety condition, but later retracted this view when first developing his much discussed virtue epistemology. Recently, Sosa has further developed his virtue theory with the notion of competence and has developed an accompanying, modified safety condition that he maintains is entailed by that theory: the SSS-safety condition. Sosa's view is that this condition holds on both knowledge and action, because (...) both knowledge and action are the manifestations of competence. The SSS-safety condition, roughly, says that if S were to make an attempt at φ-ing under certain specified shape-situation pairs, holding fixed their seat, then S would φ. The argument of this paper is that this new SSS-safety condition does not hold on either knowledge or action. We argue for this conclusion by providing a principled way to generate counter-examples to the condition for both knowledge and action. The reasoning is that there can exist a non-empty symmetric difference between the sets of shape-situation pairs under which distinct agents can manifest their epistemic and pragmatic competences, and if there can exist such a symmetric difference then the SSS-safety condition fails to hold. (shrink)

In Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa argues for a triple-S structure of complete competences that includes, besides the innermost seat competence of the agent, her overall intrinsic condition and the right situational factors for the manifestation of cognitive success to occur. Complete competences are context-sensitive. The question is raised whether epistemic competences are extrinsic or intrinsic dispositional properties, as well as whether knowledge is the manifestation of powers of the actual world or whether it is a matter of what happens (...) in modally close worlds. An ontological background for the context-sensitivity of epistemic competences that is compatible with their intrinsic character is set in the context of a general account of dispositions. An actualist conception of knowledge is also provided. On this view, the modal force of knowledge, far from being captured by non-localized possibilities, is rooted in the directedness of powers. This article, thus, aims at making explicit the ontological underpinnings of knowledge in a way that it is consistent with Sosa’s fully dispositional virtue epistemology. To this end, the constitution of complete competences is placed in a proper perspective. (shrink)

Many analytic philosophers of mind take for granted a certain conception of causality. Assumptions deriving from that conception are in place when they problematize what they call mental causation or argue for physicalism in respect of the mental. I claim that a different conception of causality is needed for understanding many ordinary causal truths about things which act, including truths about human, minded beings — sc. rational beings who lead lives.