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115Realism and the conditional analysis of dispositions: Reply to MalzkornPhilosophical Quarterly 51 (204): 375-378. 2001.
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94DispositionsCogito 8 (2): 141-146. 1994.Mumford puts forward a new theory of dispositions, showing how central their role in metaphysics and philosophy of science is. Much of our understanding of the physical and psychological world is expressed in terms of dispositional properties--from the spin of a sub-atomic particle to the solubility of sugar. Mumford discusses what it means to say that something has a property of this kind and how dispositions can possibly be real things in the world
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7Précis of All the Power in the WorldPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (2): 455-456. 2010.
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99Metaphysics and Science (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2013.Metaphysics and Science brings together important new work within an emerging philosophical discipline: the metaphysics of science. In the opening chapter, a definition of the metaphysics of science is offered, one which explains why the topics of laws, causation, natural kinds, and emergence are at the discipline's heart. The book is then divided into four sections, which group together papers from leading academics on each of those four topics. Among the questions discussed are: How are laws a…Read more
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244Causes as powers: Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum: Getting causes from powers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, 272pp, £35 HB (review)Metascience 22 (3): 545-559. 2013.
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41In Praise of TeamworkJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 42 (1): 51-56. 2015.One often chooses to work collaboratively. Given that there is a cost in effort of doing so, it suggests that there also has to be some real advantage in teamwork. The idea that the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts is applied to teams in terms of the non-linear composition of causes. One can thus do things together that one could not do alone or one can do them better. This supports Gaffney’s communitarian approach thereby explaining how the individual can be at their best when par…Read more
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Frank Jackson, Mind, Method and Conditionals: Selected EssaysInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (2): 259-260. 2000.
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1242Double prevention and powersJournal of Critical Realism 8 (3): 277-293. 2009.Does A cause B simply if A prevents what would have prevented B? Such a case is known as double prevention: where we have the prevention of a prevention. One theory of causation is that A causes B when B counterfactually depends on A and, as there is such a dependence, proponents of the view must rule that double prevention is causation.<br><br>However, if double prevention is causation, it means that causation can be an extrinsic matter, that the cause and effect need not be connected by a cont…Read more
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204Powers, Non‐Consent and FreedomPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (1): 136-152. 2014.There are a number of dispositionalist solutions to the free will problem based on freedom consisting in the agent's exercise of a power. But if a subject a is free when they exercise their power P, there is an objection to be overcome from the possibility of power implantation. A brainwasher, rather than directly manipulating a subject's movements, can instead implant in them a desire, to be understood as a disposition to act, and allow the subject to exercise such a power. It seems that, accor…Read more