Dispositional realism, as we shall use the term, is a non-reductive, anti-Humean approach to dispositions which says that natural properties confer certain dispositions as a matter of metaphysical necessity. A strong form of dispositional realism is known as pan-dispositionalism, which is typically interpreted as the view that all natural properties are identical with, or essentially dependent on, dispositions. One of the most serious problems facing pan-dispositionalism is the conceivability objection, and the solution commonly offered by essentialists employs the so-called redescription (...) strategy. In this paper I argue that this orthodox strategy fails in certain cases. This argument, in turn, shows that essentialist forms of dispositional realism are implausible. The discussion points us towards an improved version of dispositional realism. According to this new version, natural properties are not essentially dispositional but necessarily ground dispositions. (shrink)

The traditional epistemological approach towards judgments like BACHELORS ARE UNMARRIED or ALL KNOWLEDGE IS TRUE is that they are justified or known on the basis of understanding alone. In this paper, I develop an understanding-based account which takes understanding to be a sufficient source of epistemic justification for the relevant judgments. Understanding-based accounts face the problem of the rational revisability of almost all human judgments. Williamson has recently developed a reinforced version of this problem: the challenge from expert revisability. This (...) is the problem that even the best candidate judgments for understanding-based justification can be rationally rejected by the relevant experts, who may not even have any disposition or inclination to accept these judgments. However, I argue that expert revisability is fully compatible with the proposed understanding-based epistemology, because expert revisability is true of sufficient sources of epistemic justification in general. A remaining metaphysical worry is that understanding might end up being ‘too thin’ to play the envisaged epistemological role. This worry can be countered with a novel metaphysics of understanding involving second-order dispositions. (shrink)

Establishing Dispositionalism as a viable theory of modality requires the successful fulfilment of two tasks: showing that all modal truths can be derived from truths about actual powers, and offering a suitable metaphysics of powers. These two tasks are intertwined: difficulties in one can affect the chances of success in the other. In this paper, I generalise an objection to Dispositionalism by Jessica Leech and argue that the theory in its present form is ill-suited to account for de re truths (...) about merely possible entities. I argue that such difficulty is rooted in a problem in the metaphysics of powers. In particular, I contend that the well-known tension between two key principle of powers ontology, namely Directedness and Independence has received an unsatisfactory solution so far, and that it is this unsatisfactory solution concerning the status of “unmanifested manifestations” that makes it hard for Dispositionalism to account for mere possibilia. I develop a novel account of the status of unmanifested manifestations and an overall metaphysics of powers which allows to better respond to Leech's objection and handle mere possibilia. The central idea of the proposal is that unmanifested manifestations are akin to mere logical existents, and are best characterised as non-essentially non-located entities. (shrink)

Many recently released Hollywood films feature superheroes like Superman, Ironman, the Hulk, Optimus Prime, and so on who possess amazing superpower and defeat supervillains with unassailable commitment to moral justice. Interestingly, different superheroes possess and exercise their superpower in very different fashions. What is more, this aspect of their difference is intimately related to an issue that is lately in intense debate among metaphysicians of powers and dispositions, the issue of the possibility of intrinsic interferers with dispositions. This paper will (...) argue that a strong case can be made against this possibility when we give due weight to the commonsensical understanding of superheroes and their superpower. Whilst other arguments have been raised against the possibility of intrinsic interferers with dispositions in the latest literature, this will present further difficulties for those who accept it. (shrink)

The glass vase on my desk is fragile. It should be handled with care because it it is likely to shatter or crack if it is knocked, dropped, or otherwise treated roughly. The vase has certain dispositions, for example the disposition to shatter when dropped. But what is this disposition? It seems on the one hand to be a perfectly real property, a genuine respect of similarity common to glass vases, china cups, ancient manuscripts, and anything else fragile. Yet on (...) the other hand my vase's disposition seems mysterious, "ethereal" (as Nelson Goodman (1954) put it) in a way that, say, its size and shape properties are not. For my vase's disposition, it seems, has to do only with its possibly shattering in certain conditions, conditions which I hope will never be realized. In general, it seems that nothing about the actual behavior of an object is ever necessary for it to have the dispositions it has. Many objects differ from each other with respect to their dispositions in virtue of their merely possible behavior, and this is a mysterious way for objects to differ. (shrink)