A Case for Extrinsic Dispositions

McKitrick, Jennifer

doi:10.1080/713659629

Cited by 162 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…This is worth mentioning because the supervenience thesis about dispositions has been challenged (cf. Mumford 1994, McKitrick 2003. 5 Here I am following Woodward (2014, p. 29-31) in making the ontologically and empirically plausible assumption that an intervention on a supervening variable ψ is a direct and simultaneous intervention on its supervenience base SB(ψ): there is just one intervention that is changing both.…”

Section: The Interlevel Relations In Mechanistic Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutual manipulability and causal inbetweenness

Harinen

2014

Synthese

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Carl Craver's mutual manipulability criterion aims to pick out all and only those components of a mechanism that are constitutively relevant with respect to a given phenomenon. In devising his criterion, Craver has made heavy use of the notion of an ideal intervention, which is a tool for illuminating causal concepts in causal models. The problem is that typical mechanistic models contain non-causal relations in addition to causal ones, which is why the standard concept of an ideal intervention is not appropriate in that context. In this paper, I first show how top-down interventions in mechanistic models violate the conditions for ideal interventions. Drawing from recent developments in the causal exclusion literature, I then argue for extended interventionism better suited for the purposes of the new mechanist. Finally, I show why adopting such an extended account leads to the surprising consequence that an important subset of mechanistic interlevel relations come out as causal.

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Section: The Interlevel Relations In Mechanistic Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutual manipulability and causal inbetweenness

Harinen

2014

Synthese

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“…A property P confers the power to α iff P is intrinsic and is accommodated in a cause-role by a possible process-type φ, where φ is a manifestation-type for the power to α. [Fara 2005;McKitrick 2003]. This is no threat to the current proposal, however, since I am merely attempting to vindicate the dispositionalist claim that there are intrinsic properties which are essentially such as to confer certain powers.…”

Section: Different Roles Within Manifestation Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humean dispositionalism

Handfield

2008

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

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Humean metaphysics is characterised by a rejection of necessary connections between distinct existences. Dispositionalists claim that there are basic causal powers. The existence of such properties is widely held to be incompatible with the Humean rejection of necessary connections. In this paper I present a novel theory of causal powers that vindicates the dispositionalist claim that causal powers are basic, without embracing brute necessary connections. The key assumptions of the theory are that there are natural types of causal processes, and that manifestations of powers are identified with certain kinds of causal processes. From these assumptions, the modal features of powers are explained in terms of internal relations between powers themselves and the process-types in which powers are manifested. Basic causal powersA number of philosophers claim there are properties which might be characterised as basic causal powers. In particular, those philosophers identifying themselves as "dispositional essentialists", or simply "dispositionalists" appear to be committed to this idea. 1 Causal powers have distinctive modal features. Frequently, such features are explicated by appeal to a necessary connection, perhaps between the instantiation of a power and the truth of a conditional sentence. If P is a power to yield response R to stimulus S, then whenever something x instantiates P, a conditional roughly of the form 'If it were that Sx, then it would be that Rx' will be true. Giving a precise account of the required conditional has proven difficult, but there is reasonably widespread agreement that the instantiation of a power necessitates the truth of a non-trivial modal proposition -typically a non-material conditional. 2 1.

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“…However, the tendency is not inexorable. Some dispositions are extrinsic (McKitrick 2003;Fara 2005). Castles became more vulnerable when gunpowder was introduced.…”

Section: What Harm Does Conflating the Two Conceptions Do?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ambiguous Rationality

Williamson¹

2017

Episteme

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The paper distinguishes a content-oriented conception of rational belief, which concerns support relations between the proposition believed and one's evidence, from a disposition-oriented conception of rational belief, which concerns whether someone generally disposed to conform their belief to their evidence would believe the given proposition in the given circumstances. Neither type of rationality entails the other. It is argued that conating the two ways of thinking about rational belief has had damaging effects in epistemology.

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A Case for Extrinsic Dispositions

Cited by 162 publications

References 20 publications

Mutual manipulability and causal inbetweenness

Mutual manipulability and causal inbetweenness

Humean dispositionalism

Ambiguous Rationality

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