Anne Sophie Meincke

An important motivation for the assumption of irreducible powers and dispositions in the context of contemporary dispositionalism is our self-understanding as agents. We experience ourselves as agents who actively influence the course of things. We attribute causal powers to ourselves when acting and likewise to the things surrounding us. What exactly does the relationship between power and agency consist in? How does a realist view of powers and dispositions relate to the opposition between agent causal and event causal theories of action causation? How do the causal powers of living beings differ from the causal powers of inanimate nature? How are we to explicate the difference between active and passive powers which seems relevant to our understanding of agency? Can a metaphysics of causal powers help explain in what sense we are free when acting? This volume offers answers to these questions which attract increasing philosophical attention within the current debates on powers and dispositions. The volume explores the far-reaching spectrum of implications of dispositional realism as a metaphysical position for understanding causation, agency and free will. It is meant for all who are eager to learn more about the relation between power and agency. Ein zentrales Motiv für die Annahme irreduzibler Dispositionen und Vermögen im Rahmen neuerer dispositionalistischer Theorien ist unser Selbstverständnis als Handelnde. Wir erleben uns als Handelnde, die mittels diverser Vermögen aktiv den Lauf der Dinge beeinflussen können. Handelnd schreiben wir uns selbst kausale Kräfte zu ebenso wie den Dingen, die uns umgeben. Worin genau besteht aber nun der Zusammenhang von Vermögen und Handlung? Wie verhält sich eine realistische Auffassung von Dispositionen und Vermögen zum Gegensatz von agenskausalen und ereigniskausalen Handlungsmodellen? Worin unterscheiden sich die Vermögen lebendiger Wesen von den kausalen Kräften der unbelebten Natur? Wie lässt sich die für das Verständnis von Handlungen wichtige Differenz zwischen aktiven und passiven Vermögen explizieren? Kann eine Metaphysik kausaler Kräfte erklären, inwiefern wir in unserem Handeln frei sind? Der vorliegende Band bietet Antworten auf diese Fragen, die im Zuge der aktuellen Debatte um Vermögen und Dispositionen zunehmend in den Blickpunkt philosophischer Analysen rücken. Er verdeutlicht die philosophische Reichweite des dispositionalen Realismus als einer metaphysischen Position, die von unmittelbarer Relevanz ist für die Kausalitätstheorie ebenso wie für die Handlungstheorie und die Diskussion um Willensfreiheit, und richtet sich an alle, die sich für den Zusammenhang von Vermögen und Handlung interessieren.

What is metaphysics? And what do we need it for? In this paper I argue that if we answer the first question appropriately, the second question becomes pointless. To understand what metaphysics is means to understand what it is for. I shall propose that metaphysics, as a philosophical discipline, is the addressing of reality with respect to the intelligibility of reality as a whole and, i.e., the addressing of reality's being-addressed in various contexts (everyday and scientific). Insofar as reason is that which performs this ubiquitous addressing of reality, metaphysics – the addressing of the addressing of reality – turns out to be a self-addressal of reason. I shall rebut sceptical objections to this proposal, which are nourished by realist convictions, by emphasising an interesting and constructive metaphysical thesis entailed in the proposed understanding of metaphysics. At the same time, I shall oppose to idealist simplifications of the proposal by means of some reflections on the only legitimate source of a general (as opposed to special) critique of metaphysics: the questionability of the belief in a perfect intelligibility of reality.

This broad and insightful book presents current scholarship in important subfields of philosophy of science and addresses an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary readership. It groups carefully selected contributions into the four fields of I) philosophy of physics, II) philosophy of life sciences, III) philosophy of social sciences and values in science, and IV) philosophy of mathematics and formal modeling. Readers will discover research papers by Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Keizo Matsubara, Kian Salimkhani, Andrea Reichenberger, Anne Sophie Meincke, Javier Suárez, Roger Deulofeu, Ludger Jansen, Peter Hucklenbroich, Martin Carrier, Elizaveta Kostrova, Lara Huber, Jens Harbecke, Antonio Piccolomini d'Aragona and Axel Gelfert. This collection fosters dialogue between philosophers of science working in different subfields, and brings readers the finest and latest work across the breadth of the field,illustrating that contemporary philosophy of science has successfully broadened its scope of reflection. It will interest and inspire a wide audience of philosophers as well as scholars of the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities. The volume shares selected contributions from the prestigious second triennial conference of the German Society for Philosophy of Science/ Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftsphilosophie (GWP.2016, March 8, 2016 - March 11, 2016).

Recent decades have seen an increasing tendency to exclude the phenomenon of personality from the metaphysical investigation of personal identity. We are advised not to confuse personal identity as a philosophical subject, namely as the metaphysical issue of specifying what it is that makes a person staying numerically self-identical over time, with the psychological question of 'personal identity' which asks what makes someone the individual person they are with their particular character and history. However, one might be unsatisfied with this. If (as common sense takes for granted) persons are to be conceived as beings possessing a personality, should there not be some more than superficial connection between personality and personal identity in the philosophical sense? This paper investigates this question by revealing the guiding - metaphysical assumptions behind the claim that personality and personal identity must be treated separately as well as by presenting the metaphysical alternative brushed aside by the adherents of this claim. In fact, I argue, there are two opposing views of the relation between personality and personal identity, these being grounded in two opposing metaphysical models of what a person is: the substance model and the bundle model of the person. However, it turns out that ultimately both competing models fail for fundamental reasons, which raises the question of what a way out of the dilemma might look like.

Human persons exist longer than a single moment in time; they persist through time. However, so far it has not been possible to make this natural and widespread assumption metaphysically comprehensible. The philosophical debate on personal identity is rather stuck in a dilemma: reductionist theories explain personal identity away, while non-reductionist theories fail to give any informative account at all. This chapter argues that this dilemma emerges from an underlying commitment, shared by both sides of in the debate, to an ontology which that gives the priority to static unchanging things. The claim defended here is that the dilemma of personal identity can be overcome if we acknowledge the biological nature of human persons and switch to a process- ontological framework that takes process and change to be ontologically primary. Human persons are biological higher-order processes, rather than things, and their identity conditions can be scientifically investigated.

In destructing traditional metaphysics, Heidegger accuses German Idealism of eliminating the finite in favour of the infinite. Particularly Hegel is criticized for ignoring the true finitude of Dasein and thereby misinterpreting being as infinite absolute. The paper explores this criticism in three steps. First, the main features of Heidegger’s early metaphysics of finite Dasein as developed in Being and Time will be traced, followed, second, by an examination of Heidegger’s claim that Hegel’s absolute has a temporal-finite origin. Taking a closer look at Heidegger’s alternative, true finitude, leads finally to a reflection on some difficulties in Heidegger’s critique of Hegel.

In this monograph, I systematically analyse the debate in recent analytic metaphysics, with a special focus on recent biologically inspired (so-called animalist) theories of personal identity. I argue that the debate is stuck in a dilemma which is neither harmless nor new: the modern antagonism between the reductionist elimination of personal identity on the one hand and its non-reductionist mystification on the other rather repeats the antagonism between rationalist dogmatism and empirical scepticism in the 18th century’s debates on the soul. This latter antagonism has been extensively examined by Kant who also sought for ways to overcome the dilemma. The systematic analysis of the modern ‘analytic’ debate is therefore followed by a presentation and critical discussion of the constructive approaches taken by Kant and post-Kantian ‘continental’ philosophers. From a Kantian perspective, what we are confronted with is a fundamental dialectic, originating in the very structure of human reason and threatening to turn metaphysics altogether into an arena of fruitless battles. The possibility of a satisfactory metaphysical account of transtemporal personal identity reveals itself to be contingent on the possibility of a ‘good’ metaphysics able to overcome that dialectic.

This paper aims to motivate a new beginning in metaphysical thinking about persistence by drawing attention to the disappearance of change in current accounts of persistence. I defend the claim that the debate is stuck in a dilemma which results from neglecting the constructive role of change for persistence. Neither of the two main competing views, perdurantism and endurantism, captures the idea of persistence as an identity through time. I identify the fundamental ontological reasons for this, namely the shared commitment to what I call ‘thing ontology’: an ontology that gives the ontological priority to static things. I conclude by briefly indicating how switching to a process ontological framework that takes process and change to be ontologically primary may allow for overcoming the dilemma of persistence.

In destructing traditional metaphysics, Heidegger accuses German Idealism of eliminating the finite in favour of the infinite. Particularly Hegel is criticized for ignoring the true finitude of Dasein and thereby misinterpreting being as infinite absolute. The paper explores this criticism in three steps. First, the main features of Heidegger’s early metaphysics of finite Dasein as developed in Being and Time will be traced, followed, second, by an examination of Heidegger’s claim that Hegel’s absolute has a temporal-finite origin. Taking a closer look at Heidegger’s alternative, true finitude, finally leads to a reflection on some difficulties in Heidegger’s critique of Hegel.

In destructing traditional metaphysics, Heidegger accuses German Idealism of eliminating the finite in favour of the infinite. Particularly Hegel is criticized for ignoring the true finitude of Dasein and thereby misinterpreting being as infinite absolute. The paper explores this criticism in three steps. First, the main features of Heidegger’s early metaphysics of finite Dasein as developed in Being and Time will be traced, followed, second, by an examination of Heidegger’s claim that Hegel’s absolute has a temporal-finite origin. Taking a closer look at Heidegger’s alternative, true finitude, leads finally to a reflection on some difficulties in Heidegger’s critique of Hegel.

What are persons? There are two traditional answers: the relation model of person according to which a person is nothing more than a function of her relationships to other persons and the substance model which construes the person as persisting independently of relations and accidental properties. In my paper, I explore two interesting intersections of these models occurring in Augustine's speculative doctrine of trinity and in Heidegger’s early Theory of Dasein. Are Augustine’s and Heidegger’s conceptions of person convincing reconciliations of the relation model and the substance model of person and how do they compare to each other?

What are persons and how do they exist? The predominant answer to this question in Western metaphysics is that persons, human and others, are, and exist as, substances, i.e., ontologically independent, well-demarcated things defined by an immutable (usually mental) essence. Change, on this view, is not essential for a person's identity; it is in fact more likely to be detrimental to it. In this chapter I want to suggest an alternative view of human persons which is motivated by an appreciation of their biological nature. Organisms, human and non-human, are dynamical systems that for their existence and persistence depend on an ongoing interaction with the environment in which they are embedded. Taking seriously this most fundamental human condition leads to recognising human persons as processes, i.e., as entities for the identity of which change is essential. It also implies a holistic view of the human mind.

Can mental causation be naturalised without being eliminated? Thomas Buchheim argues that it can, proposing a neo-Aristotelian account dubbed "Horizontal Dualism". In this paper I assess this proposal. This article is part of a series of articles commenting on Thomas Buchheim's target article "Neuronenfeuer und seelische Tat. Ein neoaristotelischer Vorschlag zum Verständnis mentaler Kausalität", published in Philosophisches Jahrbuch 119,2 (2012), 332-346. The article was reprinted in: Mentale Verursachung [Mental Causation], ed. by Wilhelm Vossenkuhl, (Jahrbuch-Kontroversen 1), Freiburg: Alber, 2014.

In his famous essay „Der Essay als Form“ („The Essay as Form"), Adorno accuses Descartes of committing science to the ideal of absolute certainty (“zweifelsfreie Gewissheit”), thereby preluding the modern organized science (“organisierte Wissenschaft”), which in Adorno’s view has become alienated from real intellectual experience (“geistige Erfahrung”). In my essay, I criticize Adorno’s critique, showing that what Descartes in fact thinks about task and method of science comes much closer to the programmatical essayism of Critical Theory than Adorno supposed.

Eric Olson distinguishes his animalistic account of transtemporal personal identity from the apparently similar Bodily Criterion, among other things, by accusing the latter of being contaminated with Cartesian implications owing to its usage of the term ‚body‘. In contrast, Olson argues, Animalism is able to avoid these implications by substituting the concept of body for the concept of organism, which makes Animalism not only a distinct position, but also the better alternative to the Bodily Criterion. The paper critically reconstructs Olson’s charge of Cartesianism against the Bodily Criterion, thereby differentiating between several variants of it. This eventually adds up to an evaluation of how suitable these criticisms are for defending Animalism at the expense of the Bodily Criterion.

According to dispositional realism, or dispositionalism, the entities inhabiting our world possess irreducibly dispositional properties – often called ‘powers’ – by means of which they are sources of change. Dispositionalism has become increasingly popular among metaphysicians in the last three decades as it offers a realist account of causation and provides novel avenues for understanding modality, laws of nature, agency, free will and other key concepts in metaphysics. At the same time, dispositionalism is receiving growing interest among philosophers of science. This reflects the substantial role scientific findings play in arguments for dispositionalism which, as a metaphysics of science, aims to elucidate the very foundations of science. In this introductory chapter, I give an overview of the state of the debate and explain the twofold aim of the present collection of essays which is (i) to explore the ontological commitments of dispositionalism and (ii) to discuss these against the background of latest scientific research, by bringing together perspectives from both metaphysics and the philosophy of science. I finally provide a summary of this intellectual journey.

Stephen Mumford has argued that dispositionalists ought to be endurantists because perdurantism, by breaking down persisting objects in sequences of static discrete existents, is at odds with a powers metaphysics. This has been contested by Neil Williams who offers his own version of ‘powerful’ perdurance where powers function as links between the temporal parts of persisting objects. Weighing up the arguments given by both sides, I show that the profile of ‘powerful’ persistence crucially depends on how one conceptualises the processes involved in the manifestation of powers. As this turns out not to be determined per se by subscribing to some view labelled ‘powers view’, further discussion is needed as to what processes are and to what kind of process theory a powers metaphysics should commit itself in order to be convincing. I defend the claim that dispositionalism is best combined with a version of process ontology that is indeed incompatible with a perdurantist analysis of persistence. However, I argue that this does not imply that dispositionalists ought to be endurantists.

According to dispositional realism, or dispositionalism, the entities inhabiting our world possess irreducibly dispositional properties – often called ‘powers’ – by means of which they are sources of change. Dispositionalism has become increasingly popular among metaphysicians in the last three decades as it offers a realist account of causation and provides novel avenues for understanding modality, laws of nature, agency, free will and other key concepts in metaphysics. At the same time, it is receiving growing interest among philosophers of science. This reflects the substantial role scientific findings play in arguments for dispositionalism which, as a metaphysics of science, aims to unveil the very foundations of science. The present collection of essays brings together both strands of interest. It elucidates the ontological profile of dispositionalism by exploring its ontological commitments, and it discusses these from the perspective of the philosophy of science. The essays are written by both proponents of dispositionalism and sceptics so as to initiate an open-minded, constructive dialogue.

In recent years, an increasing number of theoretical biologists and philosophers of biology have been opposing reductionist research agendas by appealing to the concept of biological autonomy which draws on the older concept of autopoiesis. In my paper, I investigate some of the ontological implications of this approach. The emphasis on autonomy and autopoiesis, together with the associated idea of organisational closure, might evoke the impression that organisms are to be categorised ontologically as substances: ontologically independent, well-individuated, discrete particulars. However, I argue that this is mistaken. Autopoiesis and biological autonomy, properly understood, require a rigorous commitment to a process ontological view of life.

How many individuals are present where we see a pregnant individual? Within a substance ontological framework, there are exactly two possible answers to this question. The standard answer—two individuals—is typically championed by scholars endorsing the predominant Containment View of pregnancy, according to which the foetus resides in the gestating organism like in a container. The alternative answer—one individual—has recently found support in the Parthood View, according to which the foetus is a part of the gestating organism. Here I propose a third answer: a pregnant individual is neither two individuals nor one individual but something in between one and two. This is because organisms are better understood as processes than as substances. With a special focus on the Parthood View, I explain why a Process View of pregnancy, according to which a pregnant individual is a bifurcating hypercomplex process, surpasses the substance ontological approaches.