Toby Friend

I develop a new schema for analysis of dispositions in terms of structural equations. This schema provides the means to respond to a host of problems that have been posed for other proposals, including the problem of masks, alters, mimickers, tricks, conjunctive multi-track dispositions and dispositional degrees. In the development of this new schema, I will employ structural modelling techniques to highlight features of the problem cases, thereby revealing the utility of these techniques to ongoing discussion.

As we understand them, dispositions are relatively uncontroversial 'predicatory' properties had by objects disposed in certain ways. By contrast, powers are hypothetical 'ontic' properties posited in order to explain dispositional behaviour. Chapter 1 outlines this distinction in more detail. Chapter 2 offers a summary of the issues surrounding analysis of dispositions and various strategies in contemporary literature to address them, including one of our own. Chapter 3 describes some of the important questions facing the metaphysics of powers including why they're worth positing, and how they might metaphysically explain laws of nature and modality.

There is an inconsistency between the access we have to our conscious lives and the Humean thesis of causal generalism. This was first drawn attention to by John Hawthorne, whose argument withstands a number of objections. Nevertheless, it has weaknessess. The first premise must be weakened if Humeans are to be compelled to accept it, and consequently, the second premise will have to be stronger to retain validity. I shore up the case against Humeanism by providing revised premises along with new defences of them. I show why this also provides a lesson for non-Humeans about the epistemology of causal relations.

Can the desire for efficiently systematised theories in science be explained from within a powers metaphysics? It is plausible that the traditional ‘Powers Theory of Laws’, endorsed by many friends of powers, does not alone provide such an explanation. This has led a number of recent authors to argue that a ‘Powers Best System Account’ of laws would be a preferable alternative. This account borrows a method for determining laws from the Humean and applies it to a reality of powers. Here I claim, to the contrary, that this account is both internally unworkable and, anyway, completely undermotivated when compared with the traditional view. Apart from some brief suggestions for alternative accounts, I’ll conclude that the powers theorist still has their work cut out to explain systematising in science.

Bird’s Ultimate Argument sought to show that Armstrong’s N relationships involving categorical universals can’t entail nomic regularities. In N’s place Bird offered the non-categorical SR relation. Two kinds of objection have been raised: either Bird’s own alternative metaphysics fails in just the same way as Armstrong’s or the target of Bird’s argument may anyway have a way out of the problem. My aim is to reclaim the victory for Bird. I argue that the responses in defence of Armstong’s N relationships fail to acknowledge that Bird was explicitly concerned with Armstrong’s commitment to a categoricalist view of universals. Moreover, Bird’s alternative account does not suffer the same problem since his metaphysics of properties is essentialist. Nevertheless, Bird’s account does need elaborating on to explainwhySR relationships entail their regularities. I offer Schaffer’s Axiomatic Solution as a candidate for this purpose.

Lewis’s original Best Systems Account of laws was not motivated much by pragmatics. But recent commentary on his general approach to laws has taken a ‘pragmatic turn’. This was initiated by Hall’s defence against the charge of ‘ratbag idealism’ which maintained that best systems accounts should be admired rather than criticised for the inherent pragmatism behind their choice of desiderata for what counts as ‘best’. Emboldened by Hall’s pragmatic turn, recent commentators have proposed the addition of pragmatically motivated desiderata to complement or replace the canonical desiderata of strength and simplicity. This, they hope, will allow their revisionary BSAs to respond better to various counterexamples against the original account. While the pragmatic turn itself is well taken, here I problematise these revisionary approaches. First, there are reasonable responses to the counterexamples from within the canonical BSA. Second, while actual laws may satisfy the newly proposed desiderata, there are reasons to think these desiderata cannot be constitutive of laws. By comparison, the canonical desiderata appear to be relevant to explaining why and when the revisionary desiderata will reflect pragmatic features of the laws and better reflect the motives behind practitioners of fundamental physics.

Megarian Actualism is the denial of unmanifesting powers. Aristotle called such a view ‘buffoonery’ and dispositionalists have provided compelling reasons for the contrary platitude that powers need not manifest. Even so, drawing on extant treatments of quantitative powers I’ll suggest that many of the powers which feature in quantitative lawlike equations are plausibly interpreted as Megarian. This is because the powers described by such equations are best understood as being directed towards all the values of exhaustive manifestation variables. I’ll discuss the prospects for generalising these Megarian characteristics to powers not typically represented in strict quantitative terms. The result will be a strong basis for a scientifically informed and plausible dispositionalist account: Megarian Variable Actualism.

Two tenets are of significant concern to today’s philosophers of science: one continues to be that age-old idea of Scientific Realism, the other is a more contemporary assertion of the Metaphysical Unity to science. Although the motivations for or against them are very different, there seems to be a payoff with the degree to which anyone has so-far been able to accept one given their acceptance of the other. Or at least, that is what a survey of recent debate would seem to suggest. Why is this? I’ll hazard a guess after laying out what exactly the tenets claim and how philosophers have tried to orient themselves between them.

Part–whole causation (PWC) is the thesis that some causes are part of their effects. PWC has been objected to because of its incompatibility with the criterion that causes not be spatially included within their effects and the criterion that causes and effects are ontologically distinct in some sense. This paper serves to undermine the sufficiency of these ways of objecting to PWC by showing that for each criterion either cause-effect relationships need not satisfy it or part–whole relationships can. A case-study of the collapse of Bridge 9340 is employed to facilitate the discussion.

Part–whole causation is the thesis that some causes are part of their effects. PWC has been objected to because of its incompatibility with the criterion that causes not be spatially included within their effects and the criterion that causes and effects are ontologically distinct in some sense. This paper serves to undermine the sufficiency of these ways of objecting to PWC by showing that for each criterion either cause-effect relationships need not satisfy it or part–whole relationships can. A case-study of the collapse of Bridge 9340 is employed to facilitate the discussion.

The ubiquitous schema ‘All Fs are Gs’ dominates much philosophical discussion on laws but rarely is it shown how actual laws mentioned and used in science are supposed to fit it. After consideration of a variety of laws, including those obviously conditional and those superficially not conditional, I argue that we have good reason to support the traditional interpretation of laws as conditionals of some quantified form with a single object variable. I show how this conclusion impacts on the status of ‘system laws’ and the significance of having only one object variable with regard to the relationship between laws and causal relations