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127MAX KISTLER Causation and Laws of Nature: Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (1): 223-227. 2013.
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139Laws and LawlessnessSynthese 144 (3): 397-413. 2005.I develop a metaphysical position that is both lawless and anti-Humean. The position is called realist lawlessness and contrasts with both Humean lawlessness and nomological realism – the claim that there are laws in nature. While the Humean view also allows no laws, realist lawlessness is not Humean because it accepts some necessary connections in nature between distinct properties. Realism about laws, on the other hand, faces a central dilemma. Either laws govern the behaviour of properties fr…Read more
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31Watching sport: aesthetics, ethics and emotionRoutledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 2012.Do we watch sport for pure dumb entertainment? While some people might do so, Stephen Mumford argues that it can be watched in other ways. Sport can be both a subject of high aesthetic values and a valid source for our moral education. The philosophy of sport has tended to focus on participation, but this book instead examines the philosophical issues around watching sport. Far from being a passive experience, we can all shape the way that we see sport. Delving into parallels with art and theatr…Read more
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112The true and the falseAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2). 2005.This Article does not have an abstract
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1206What is the connection between dispositions and ethics? Some might think very little and those who are interested in dispositions tend to be metaphysicians whose interests are far from value. However, we argue in this paper that dispositions and dispositionality are central to ethics, indeed a precondition. Ethics rests on a number of notions that are either dispositional in nature or involve real dispositions or powers at work. We argue for a dispositional account of value that offers an altern…Read more
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69Ellis and Lierse on dispositional essentialismAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 73 (4). 1995.This Article does not have an abstract
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120Realism and the conditional analysis of dispositions: Reply to MalzkornPhilosophical Quarterly 51 (204): 375-378. 2001.
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95DispositionsCogito 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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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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179Causes 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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Frank Jackson, Mind, Method and Conditionals: Selected EssaysInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (2): 259-260. 2000.
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1282Double 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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207Powers, 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
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1Causal DispositionalismIn Alexander Bird, Brian David Ellis & Howard Sankey (eds.), Properties, Powers and Structures: Issues in the Metaphysics of Realism, Routledge. 2013.
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109Moderate Partisanship as OscillationSport, Ethics and Philosophy 6 (3): 369-375. 2012.In Watching Sport, Stephen Mumford distinguishes two ways in which sport can be seen. A purist sees it aesthetically while a partisan sees it competitively. But this overlooks the obvious point that most sports fans are neither entirely purist nor entirely partisan. The norm will be some moderate position in between with the purist and partisan as ideal limits. What is then the point of considering these pure aesthetic and pure competitive ways of seeing? In this discussion note, I consider poss…Read more
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193A new argument against compatibilismAnalysis (1). 2013.If one’s solution to the free will problem is in terms of real causal powers of agents then one ought to be an incompatibilist. Some premises are contentious but the following new argument for incompatibilism is advanced: 1. If causal determinism is true, all events are necessitated2. If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers3. Free will consists in the exercise of an agent’s powersTherefore, if causal determinism is true, there is no free will; which is to say that free will is i…Read more
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199Laws in natureRoutledge. 2004.This book outlines a major new theory of natural laws. The book begins with the question of whether there are any genuinely law-like phenomena in nature. The discussion addresses questions currently being debated by metaphysicians such as whether the laws of nature are necessary or contingent and whether a property can be identified independently of its causal role.
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35Dispositions, bases, overdetermination and identitiesRatio 8 (1): 42-62. 1995.In this paper I aim to make sense of our pre‐theoretic intuitions about dispositions by presenting an argument for the identity of a disposition with its putative categorical base. The various possible ontologies for dispositions are outlined. The possibility of an empirical proof of identity is dismissed. Instead an a priori argument for identity is adapted from arguments in the philosophy of mind. I argue that dispositions occupy, by analytic necessity, the same causal roles that categorical b…Read more
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200Getting Causes From PowersOxford University Press. 2011.Causation is everywhere in the world: it features in every science and technology. But how much do we understand it? Mumford and Anjum develop a new theory of causation based on an ontology of real powers or dispositions. They provide the first detailed outline of a thoroughly dispositional approach, and explore its surprising features
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93The Tendential Theory of Sporting ProwessJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 41 (3): 399-412. 2014.The results of sport would not interest us if either they were necessitated or they were a matter of pure chance. And if either case were true, the playing of sport would seem to make no sense either. This poses a dilemma. But there is something between these two options, namely the dispositional modality. Sporting prowess can be understood as a disposition towards victory and sporting liabilities a disposition towards defeat. The sporting contest then pits these net prowesses against each other…Read more
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71Powers as causal truthmakersDisputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin 3 (4): 5--31. 2014.[EN]Most theories of causation assume that it must involve some kind of necessity, or that the cause must be entirely sufficient for the effect. Others have already suggested that it should be possible to get a theory of causation from a theory of powers or dispositions. Such a project is far from complete but even here we find that the key point in a dispositional theory of causation has been lacking. This paper attempts to establish some of the most important principles of such a theory and in…Read more
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145Essences, kinds, and laws of natureMetascience 11 (3): 324-328. 2002.Review of Brian Ellis's Scientific Essentialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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Russell on Metaphysics: Selections From the Writings of Bertrand Russell (edited book)Routledge. 2003.Is the world of appearances the real world? Are there facts that exist independently of our minds? Are there vague objects? _Russell on Metaphysics_ brings together for the first time a comprehensive selection of Russell's writing on metaphysics in one volume. Russell's major and lasting contribution to metaphysics has been hugely influential and his insights have led to the establishment of analytic philosophy as a dominant stream in philosophy. Stephen Mumford chronicles the metaphysical natur…Read more