Dispositions Unmasked

Abstract

The problem of masking is widely regarded as a grave threat to the conditional analysis of dispositions. Unlike the difficulty arising in connection with finkish situations, the problem does not involve the (dis)appearance of a disposition upon the arrival of its activating conditions. Consequently, some promising responses to the finkish cases, in particular David Lewis's reformed analysis, are ill-equipped to deal with masks. I contend that the difficulty posed by masks can be surmounted by supplementing the counterfactual at the heart of the conditional analysis with a ceteris paribus clause. In spelling out this idea, I first examine the issue of provisos in nomic statements. Then I show how the employment of the ceteris paribus clause escapes the objections that are often raised against it, including the charge that the clause cannot informatively capture all the possible masks of a disposition.

Rule-following, ideal conditions and finkish dispositions

“…26-27)]. 7 For a promising version of this suggestion see Hauska (2009). Here Hauska maintains that, contrary appearances notwithstanding, the ceteris paribus clause can be non-vacuously specified by means of a combination of description, exemplification and enumeration [see (2009, p.…”

Yet Another Victim of Kripkenstein’s Monster: Dispositions, Meaning, and Privilege

“…35. For one, denying it commits you to offering some account of the truth conditions of theby the way, rather convoluted (see, e.g., Lewis 1997 andHauska 2009)-counterfactuals related to disposition ascriptions such as "Saul is disposed to answer '125' if asked for '68 + 57' in ideal conditions" that does not make any use either of the notion of ideal conditions or of semantic notions (keep in mind the no-circularity requirement of Section 1! ), which is no easy task (see Lance & The third reason to be skeptical of the potential of the ideal-condition strategy I just mention, but I hope that this will not give the reader the impression that I take it to be less important than the previous ones-it is just that I really do not know what a supporter of the ideal-condition strategy could say to address this worry, and without some idea of what one could say to answer the problem I have in mind there just is not that much to discuss.…”

The dynamical essence of powers

“…On the one hand, attempting to establish a membership criteria that discerns between relevant 'causal' factors and mere 'background conditions' is likely to be a largely ad hoc enterprise (Mumford and Anjum 2011). On the other hand, however, including every causally relevant factor in a power's stimulus condition might require including world-encompassing 'totality facts' (Armstrong 1997;Jacobs, 2011) and so, to ensure causal 'closure', perhaps even absences (Hauska 2009) in the intrinsic essence of a power; for a good overview of the ontological oddity of totality facts, see Keller (2007). more or less Oxygen, more or less wind, etc.…”