Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-956mj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-19T06:07:47.219Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Are Physical Properties Dispositions?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Edward Wilson Averill
Edward Wilson Averill*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy Texas Tech University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Several prominent philosophers have held that physical properties are dispositions. The aim of this paper is to establish the following conjunction: if the thesis that physical properties are dispositions is unsupplemented by controversial assumptions about dispositions, it entails a contradiction; and if it is so supplemented the resulting theory has the consequence that either many worlds which seem to be possible worlds are not possible worlds or some properties which seem to be identical are not identical. In this way it is shown that a dispositional account of physical properties is implausible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 118 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for a fellowship, and Texas Tech University for a Faculty Development Grant which allowed me time to write this essay.

References

REFERENCES

Bennett, J. (1984), “Counterfactuals and Temporal Direction”, The Philosophical Review 93: 57–91.10.2307/2184413CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chisholm, R. (1946), “The Contrary-to-Fact Conditional”, Mind 55: 215–235.Google Scholar
Goodman, N. (1983), Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, fourth Edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Levi, I. and Morgenbesser, S. (1964), “Belief and Disposition”, American Philosophical Quarterly 1: 221–232.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973), Counterfactuals. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1979), “Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow”, Nous 13: 455–476.10.2307/2215339CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellor, D. (1974), “In Defense of Dispositions”, The Philosophical Review 83: 157–181.10.2307/2184136CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellor, D. (1982), “Counting Corners Correctly”, Analysis 42: 96–97.10.1093/analys/42.2.96CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popper, K. (1957), “The Propensity Interpretation of the Calculus of Probability, and the Quantum Theory”, in S. Körner (ed.), Observations and Interpretation. London: Butterworths Scientific Publications.Google Scholar
Prior, E. (1982), “The Disposition/Categorical Distinction”, Analysis 42: 93–96.10.1093/analys/42.2.93CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prior, E. (1985), Dispositions. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Symon, K. (1960), Mechanics. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar