Individuation and explanation: a problem for dispositionalism
- PDF / 584,482 Bytes
- 21 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 64 Downloads / 229 Views
Individuation and explanation: a problem for dispositionalism Tyler Hildebrand1
Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract According to dispositionalism, fundamental properties are dispositions— powers that don’t reduce to other properties, laws, or anything else. As dispositions manifest, natural regularities result, so this view appears to explain the uniformity of nature. However, in this paper I’ll argue that there are types of regularities that can’t be explained by dispositionalism. The basic idea is this. All accounts of fundamental dispositions endow properties with a certain sort of structure. This allows explanations of only those regularities that align with such structures. In this paper, I identify a type of natural regularity that cannot fit dispositionalist structures and show why the possibility of such regularities is problematic. Keywords Laws of nature Dispositions Explanation Graph theory
1 Introduction The following picture of the natural world is now popular: Dispositionalism: Fundamental natural properties are individuated by their roles in causal/nomological structures. In other words, these properties are powers—intrinsically dispositional properties that don’t reduce to other properties, laws, or anything else. Particular matters of fact are arranged into patterns as these dispositions manifest, so this view provides an explanation of regularities in nature. & Tyler Hildebrand [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University, 6135 University Avenue, PO Box 15000, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada
123
T. Hildebrand
Proponents of dispositionalism include Shoemaker (1980), Swoyer (1982), Mumford (2004), Bird (2007), Chakravartty (2007), Tugby (2013b), Vetter (2015), Demarest (2017), and Williams (2019).1 Since dispositionalism appears to explain regularities in nature, most of its proponents are resistant to the idea that we should posit additional varieties of natural necessity. Thus, dispositionalists often reject the following theories: the theory that laws themselves are primitives (Carroll 1994, 2008; Maudlin 2007); the theory that laws are external relations between universals (Dretske 1977; Tooley 1977; Armstrong 1983); the theory that structure is imposed on the world by a god (Foster 2004); and any other theory that invokes a non-dispositional sort of nomic necessity. Dispositionalists do not usually view such theories as complementary. Rather, they see them as competitors whose modal primitives would be redundant if paired with a dispositionalist ontology. For our purposes, I’ll understand dispositionalism to involve two main claims. The first describes the dispositionalist ontology: at least some fundamental properties are powers/potencies/propensities/dispositions. (I’ll usually use the term ‘dispositions’, but nothing depends on this). The second describes the explanatory power of this ontology: these dispositions can explain any regularities we might want to explain. In this paper, I’ll object to the second claim. My argument is based on a simple idea. Dispos
Data Loading...
