Theists claim that God can make a causal difference in the world. That is, theists believe that God is causally efficacious, has power. Discussion of divine power has centered on understanding better the metaphysics of creation and sustenance, special intervention, governance, and providing an account of omnipotence consistent with other divine attributes, such as omnibenevolence. But little discussion has centered on what, deep down ontologically, God’s power is. I show that a number of prominent accounts of power fail to model (...) what divine power could be, and then develop an account based on teleological and primitivist accounts of power. (shrink)

Although they are continually compositionally reconstituted and reconfigured, organisms nonetheless persist as ontologically unified beings over time – but in virtue of what? A common answer is: in virtue of their continued possession of the capacity for morphological invariance which persists through, and in spite of, their mereological alteration. While we acknowledge that organisms‟ capacity for the “stability of form” – homeostasis - is an important aspect of their diachronic unity, we argue that this capacity is derived from, and grounded (...) in a more primitive one – namely, the homeodynamic capacity for the “specified variation of form”. In introducing a novel type of causal power – a „structural power‟ – we claim that it is the persistence of their dynamic potential to produce a specified series of structurally adaptive morphologies which grounds organisms‟ privileged status as metaphysically “one over many” over time. (shrink)

One recently popular way to characterise strong emergence is to say that emergent entities possess novel causal powers. However, there is little agreement concerning the nature of powers. One controversy involves whether powers are single- or multi-track; that is, whether each power has only one manifestation type, or whether a single power can be directed towards a number of distinct manifestations. Another concerns how powers operate: whether a lone power manifests when triggered by the presence of a suitable stimulus, or (...) whether powers operate mutually such that several powers must ‘work together’ to bring about a particular manifestation. This paper examines how these distinctions—which can be cross-combined to frame four distinct accounts of the nature of powers—bear on the debate between emergentists and reductionists. (shrink)

Many powers-realists assume that the powers of objects are identical with the dispositions of objects and, hence, that ‘power’ and ‘disposition’ are interchangeable. In this article, I aim to disentangle dispositions from powers with the goal of getting a better sense of how powers and dispositions relate to one another. I present and defend a modest realism about dispositions built upon a standard strong realism about powers. I argue that each correct disposition-ascription we can make of an object is made (...) true by the manifestations towards which a given power or collection of powers of the object is directed.RésuméDe nombreux réalistes des pouvoirs supposent que les pouvoirs des objets sont identiques aux dispositions des objets et, par conséquent, que le « pouvoir » et la « disposition » sont interchangeables. Dans cet article, j'ai pour objectif de démêler les dispositions des pouvoirs dans le but d'avoir une meilleure idée de la façon dont les pouvoirs et les dispositions se rapportent les uns aux autres. Je présente et défends un réalisme des dispositions modeste fondées sur un réalisme des pouvoirs standard fort. Je soutiens que chaque disposition-ascription correcte que nous pouvons faire d'un objet est rendue vraie par les manifestations vers lesquelles un pouvoir donné ou une collection de pouvoirs de l'objet est dirigé. (shrink)

According to contemporary ‘process ontology’, organisms are best conceptualised as spatio-temporally extended entities whose mereological composition is fundamentally contingent and whose essence consists in changeability. In contrast to the Aristotelian precepts of classical ‘substance ontology’, from the four-dimensional perspective of this framework, the identity of an organism is grounded not in certain collections of privileged properties, or features which it could not fail to possess, but in the succession of diachronic relations by which it persists, or ‘perdures’ as one entity (...) over time. In this paper, I offer a novel defence of substance ontology by arguing that the coherency and plausibility of the radical reconceptualisation of organisms proffered by process ontology ultimately depends upon its making use of the ‘substantial’ principles it purports to replace. (shrink)

Powers are properties defined by what they do. The focus of the large majority of the powers literature has been mainly put on explicating the (multifaceted) results of the production of a power in certain (multifaceted) initial conditions: but all this causal complexity is bound to be—and, in fact, it has proved to be—quite difficult to handle. In this paper we take a different approach by focusing on the very activity of producing those multifaceted manifestations themselves. In this paper, we (...) propose an original account of what the essence of a power consists in which stems from a radical reconceptualisation of power-causation according to which counterfactuals are to be explained away by powers, and not vice-versa. We call this approach the dynamical operator account of powers. According to this account, the causal role of powers consists in their ensuring that the ontological transition from a stimulus S to a manifestation M happens. Powers thus have a dynamical essence which consists in the fundamental activity of generating the counterfactuals typically associated with them. We show that if one conceptualises this functional activity as the metaphysical fulcrum around which counterfactual-based causation revolves, one is granted not only an improved methodology to individuate powers but also a better understanding of their knowability, modality and directedness. (shrink)

I shall introduce at the beginning of the paper a characterization of strong ontological emergence. According to it, roughly, something strongly emerges from some other thing iff the former depends in some respect on the latter and it some independent of it in some other respect. Afterwards, I shall present my own formulation of strong emergence, which is based on the distinction between the mere possession and the activation of a causal power. Causal powers are the entities to be primarily (...) taken as emergent. Emergent causal powers depend for their possession on their emergence bases, but they are also independent of the latter for their activation. This claim will be defended within some more general assumptions about the metaphysics of powers. Finally, I shall compare the power-based formulation of emergence with other formulations. I shall try to demonstrate that the power-based formulation is metaphysically less controversial than the other formulations. For the power-based formulation does not need to defend the additional thesis that the emergents can depend in some relevant respect on their bases and be independent of the latter in some other relevant respect. Indeed, the distinction between the mere possession and the activation of a power is inscribed in the nature of powers themselves. (shrink)

Something is good insofar as it achieves its end, so says a neo-Aristotelian view of goodness. Powers/dispositions are paradigm cases of entities that have an end, so say many metaphysicians. A question therefore arises, namely, can one account for neo-Aristotelian goodness in terms of an ontology of powers? This is what I shallbeginto explore in this paper. I will first provide a brief explication of both neo-Aristotelian goodness and the metaphysics of powers, before turning to investigate whether one can give (...) an account of neo-Aristotelian goodness in terms of powers. I will suggest that the answer to this question is yes. (shrink)

This paper examines Aristotle’s account of the individuation of causal powers, which dominated much of scholastic thought about powers, and argues that John Buridan rejected it. It contends that Buridan criticizes Aristotle’s account on two counts. First, he attacks Aristotle’s view that we ought to individuate powers by appeal to their respective activities. Second, Buridan objects to Aristotle’s “single-track” account, which correlates one type of power with only one type of activity. Against this, it is argued, Buridan adopts a multi-track (...) approach, according to which a single power type may be correlated with many different types of activities. The paper claims that the basic idea of Buridan’s multi-track view is still defensible today, and can be viewed as a viable alternative to the contemporary single-track account of power individuation defended, for instance, by Jonathan Lowe. (shrink)

Dispositionality and qualitativity are key notions to describe the world that we inhabit. Dispositionality is a matter of what a thing is disposed to do in certain circumstances. Qualitativity is a matter of how a thing is like. According to the Identity Theory of powers, every fundamental property is at once dispositional and qualitative, or a powerful quality. Canonically, the Identity Theory holds a contentious identity claim between a property’s dispositionality and its qualitativity. In the literature, this view faces a (...) contradiction objection that undermines its merits. We should therefore consider an alternative version that does not embrace the identity claim. My aim is to show that we can enjoy the benefits of the Identity Theory without embracing the identity between the dispositional and the qualitative. I shall argue that a distinction between two senses of dispositionality and qualitativity serves the purpose. I will then discuss three readings of the identity claim that can be formulated in light of such a distinction. I will conclude that even if the identity were to fail in any of the suggested readings, it would be possible to hold an account of fundamental powerful qualities. (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)

Megarian Actualism is the denial of unmanifesting powers. Aristotle called such a view ‘buffoonery’ and dispositionalists have provided compelling reasons for the contrary platitude that powers need not manifest. Even so, drawing on extant treatments of quantitative powers I’ll suggest that many of the powers which feature in quantitative lawlike equations are plausibly interpreted as Megarian. This is because the powers described by such equations are best understood as being directed towards all the values of exhaustive manifestation variables. I’ll discuss (...) the prospects for generalising these Megarian characteristics to powers not typically represented in strict quantitative terms. The result will be a strong basis for a scientifically informed and plausible dispositionalist account: Megarian Variable Actualism. (shrink)

What accounts for the linkage of seemingly diverse and inherently separable fundamental properties, such that they are regarded as properties of a single thing? Multiple answers to this question have been put forward in both the historical and current literature, especially from competing substance ontologies and competing theories concerning the metaphysics of natural kinds. Here I lay out and critically assess two ways in which dispositionalism might contribute to the discussion.