Dispositions, causal powers to action.

[TheEgoist]

So this semester I have been enrolled in a seminar class on the topic of dispositions and causal powers (Usually, but not always, taken as the same thing).

Short hand, a disposition is a property of some entity that causes it to act in some way when acted upon. A paradigm case is the solubility of a tablet of salt. Salt has the disposition to dissolve when placed in water. These properties are standardly taken as the opposites of categorical properties. A categorical property is one which an object has through time. It does not have to be realizable. It just is. Standard cases are mass, shape, location.

It's hard to put the debate into two camps, but if we must, there are those who claim that dispositions are not essential properties but results of their categorical bases. And then, there is the much more varied group of those who think dispositions are essential, irreducible properties.

I bring this position up on here because I have been drawing parallels between certain conclusions drawn in the realm of dispositions between the essentialista and Rand.

If you know much about modern discussions of causation, you know that cause and effect is explained in terms of events. Entities do not act a certain way in virtue of themselves, but because of interaction. A rubber ball has no causal powers within itself but only in the world it inhabits. This leads to the popular opinion of modern philosophers of science that laws of nature are contingent. They depend on the world you inhabit. The laws of nature could have been otherwise. Rubber could cause a ball to lay on the floor calmly when one throws it down, as opposed to the ball bouncing. This was the opinion popularized by Hume in the 1700s, but it persists in metaphysics today.

However, if we take dispositions as essential properties to their bearers, it becomes a story that involves the identity of the properties and the entity that bears them and no longer a story about events and possibilities. Laws of nature are necessary. You cannot have a world where salt does not dissolve or where a rubber ball does not bounce, given the correct conditions.

I wish I could give some articles available for free viewing, but I don't know of any. If you're a student or have the ability, you should check into the work of Brian Ellis. He is the main figure in this school of thought.

Brian Ellis

[aequalsa]

Short hand, a disposition is a property of some entity that causes it to act in some way when acted upon. A paradigm case is the solubility of a tablet of salt. Salt has the disposition to dissolve when placed in water. These properties are standardly taken as the opposites of categorical properties. A categorical property is one which an object has through time. It does not have to be realizable. It just is. Standard cases are mass, shape, location.

I'm not sure that I understand the difference, exactly from your description. The state of salt is affected by aspects of its environment(like contact with water), but so are all other properties that I can think of. Shape for example is dependent on pressure and temperature. Location is necessarily a relative construct. The mass of a chair changes when it comes into contact with a chainsaw or fire.

Seems like an artificial classification to me derived from the apparent constancy of those properties here on earth. Am I misunderstanding something about it?

[TheEgoist]

There is a debate that all categorical properties are in fact dispositions as well. It's a position I'm grappling with here at the moment, but let me take the side of the categoricalist for argument's sake.

While things like shape, location and mass can change, they are properties that the entity bears through time as actualized. Solubility, while a legitimate property, is a realizable one. It remains inert until acted upon. Let us say we have a triangular tablet of salt. It has the property of triangularity at that time and through out. It does not require something to happen to it for it to be triangular, but really only that something does not happen to it.

But like I said, this is not a dogma of philosophy. In fact, much of the current literature is now on this very debate. If Brian Ellis is the major proponent of the dualist account, Alexander Bird is the dispositional monist. So that's a name you may want to look into.

I'm going to try to compile a list of some available papers later.

Edited April 24, 2011 by TheEgoist

[Vik]

So this semester I have been enrolled in a seminar class on the topic of dispositions and causal powers (Usually, but not always, taken as the same thing).

Short hand, a disposition is a property of some entity that causes it to act in some way when acted upon. A paradigm case is the solubility of a tablet of salt. Salt has the disposition to dissolve when placed in water. These properties are standardly taken as the opposites of categorical properties. A categorical property is one which an object has through time. It does not have to be realizable. It just is. Standard cases are mass, shape, location.

It's hard to put the debate into two camps, but if we must, there are those who claim that dispositions are not essential properties but results of their categorical bases. And then, there is the much more varied group of those who think dispositions are essential, irreducible properties.

Would you say that one camp focuses on action-potentials while ignoring the nature of the entities while the other focuses on constituent properties at the expense of circumstances and context?

Would you say that an "event" is simply an entity doing an action?

However, if we take dispositions as essential properties to their bearers, it becomes a story that involves the identity of the properties and the entity that bears them and no longer a story about events and possibilities. Laws of nature are necessary. You cannot have a world where salt does not dissolve or where a rubber ball does not bounce, given the correct conditions.

Are we talking about how action-potentials arise from constituent properties?

e.g.:

Since salt is made of chemically bonded ions, salt has the potential for being dissolved because of the interaction between the water molecules and the ions

Since a rubber ball is made out of a highly elastic material, it will bounce when it collides with a sufficiently rigid body at sufficient velocity etc etc.

[TheEgoist]

I would say that an event is just made up of time and the actions within that time. The event of this salt dissolving in the water. The strongly Humean philosophers will say there is nothing more to causation than the events, though. There is no nature of the salt that causes it to act a certain way. In another world, salt may become more tightly bonded in water.

To your last question, I'd say t hat is a fair assessment.

[New Buddha]

There is no nature of the salt that causes it to act a certain way.

Wouldn't it be a true statement that salt's dissolution (behavior) is it's nature, it's identity? As is water's reaction to salt?

Edited April 27, 2011 by New Buddha

[Vik]

Wouldn't it be a true statement that salt's dissolution (behavior) is it's nature, it's identity? As is water's reaction to salt?

You can dissolve carbon in metal alloy solutions, but that doesn't distinguish carbon from other elements.

I think it would be better to say that what salt does is *within* its nature while ionic bonds, composition et al *constitute* the identity of salt.